


Fated to Die

by LostInTheWiind



Category: American Gods (TV)
Genre: Enemies to Friends, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Enemies to Lovers, F/M, Fantasy, Gen, Love/Hate, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-29
Updated: 2019-12-08
Packaged: 2021-02-25 22:35:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 16
Words: 42,861
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21603091
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LostInTheWiind/pseuds/LostInTheWiind
Summary: Living in modern America, ancient Irish goddess Badb Catha, The Morrígan, struggles with the fact that her worshipers are dwindling and her powers are fading. Once the goddess of battle and war, Brina - as she goes by now - is teetering on the edge of greatness and normalcy; that is, until a powerful man with a tempting offer re-enters her life. War shall be had between the Old Gods and the New, and only one can prevail.
Relationships: Mad Sweeney (American Gods)/Original Female Character(s)
Kudos: 23





	1. Prologue | The Morrígan

From Irish mythology, The Morrígan or simply Morrígan is the goddess of battle and war with the name translating into "great queen" or "phantom queen".

Often appearing as a crow, Morrígan is associated with war and fate — more specifically, foretelling doom, death, or victory in battle. While encouraging warriors to be brave and enticing them towards war, she also strikes fear into their enemies, often swaying the results of the battle in favour of one side over the other. Another common sighting of The Morrígan is when she is seen washing the bloodsoaked clothes of someone - often a warrior-, indicating that they are fated to die.

The Morrígan is often described as being made up of a trio of sisters, thus creating "the three Morrígna". Names of the triad vary from Badb, Macha, and Nemain, while elsewhere it is given as Badb, Macha, and Anand. However, it is also widely believed that these were all names for the same goddess. 


	2. Your Promises, Sweet Like Honey

It was a rather miserable day, what with the dark thunder clouds rolling in and the unmistakable smell of a storm brewing in the air. However, Brina was quite convinced that even if it had been a perfect day outside with a bright blue sky and a warm, glowing sun, she would still feel the same; a dull and neverending sense of melancholy wrapping its way around her entire body and slowly, bit by bit, squeezing her tighter and tighter. 

Every morning Brina would wake up with the same feeling — the feeling that she was slowly being smothered to death by her boring and uneventful life — and every morning she would swear that there was no way the squeezing could get any tighter, but then she would wake up again the next day, and somehow, without fail, it would always be the tiniest bit worse than it was the day before. 

Slowly, and seemingly with no end, Brina was having her life, the very essence of her being choked out of her. 

Working a dead-end job in a shitty little town in Washington state was nothing compared to the life Brina used to live — a life full of excitement, thrill, lust, and power. It was truly a life worth living. Sometimes, faint memories of the goddess she used to be would pass by, and for a split second, Brina swore she could feel the goosebumps of adrenaline on her skin and taste the freedom on the tip of her tongue. Faint memories, that's all that was left of the world Brina knew as her own — the world where the name Morrígan struck fear into even the mightiest of warriors. 

This world, this modern world, was no place for a goddess of war; in fact, it was no place for any of the old gods that once ruled the earth, their stories and worshipers reaching far and wide, sea and land. 

The gods of today's world were new, fresh, and adapted to the technological advancements around them. Coming up fast and without mercy, the new gods were truly bringing a whole new meaning to what people once knew as 'American Gods.'

Sitting at her desk in the small, unassuming war museum she worked in, Brina suddenly snapped out of her daze when the air became thicker and the lights flickered for a brief moment. Feeling his presence in her bones before he even entered the establishment, an overwhelming sense of dread washed over Brina's body, and as the front door began to open, she sat up straight and balled her hands into fists underneath the desk. 

With his usual confidence and swagger, the otherwise innocent-looking old man strolled into the small museum with such a strong sense of belonging that anyone who didn't know any better would have thought he owned the damn place. He didn't even have to search for the woman; somehow, he already knew exactly where she would be and his eyes went straight to the front desk. 

"Lovely day out, isn't it?" he greeted with a sweet smile that Brina and many others had fallen victim to many times before. "We could sure use some rain."

Brina unclenched her jaw as she stood to her feet, her eyes sweeping the surrounding area to make sure no one was within earshot before she leaned in. "What are you doing here?" she spat, the man's name too bitter to even say. "I thought I told you that I never wanted anything to do with you after last time."

"That you did, but I felt that three decades together simply wasn't enough. With billions of years on this planet, why only work together for thirty?"

Brina scoffed, the rage progressively rising inside of her. "Working together? Is that what you call it?"

The man nodded matter-of-factly. "Yes, what do you call it?"

"I call it three decades of doing your dirty work!" Brina caught herself and had to lower her voice again. "I call it three decades of indentured servitude."

The man was silent for a moment, deep in thought, before speaking again. "Well, be that as it may, we made a deal that you willingly agreed to. Did I or did I not hold up my end of the deal?"

"You know that wasn't the deal I agreed to."

"But yet, it was." he waved his hand to dismiss the topic at hand. "Anyway, enough about the past. I'm here to talk to you about the future; our future."

Brina shook her head hard and started to walk away, wanting to leave both the conversation and the older man behind her, both figuratively and literally. "I want nothing to do with a future that involves you. I'm not interested."

"Not interested? You haven't even heard my proposal yet." the man followed behind Brina, leaving a reasonable distance between the two of them. "The Badb Catha, Morrígan, goddess of battle and war that I knew was much too smart to let an opportunity that works in her favour pass her by, especially without even hearing it out first. Now, now, don't be foolish."

"The woman, goddess of battle and war that you are looking for doesn't exist anymore. She stopped existing a long time ago."

"Then who do I have the pleasure of speaking to now?"

Rolling her eyes, Brina sighed in defeat before introducing herself using the mortal name she had chosen for herself all those years ago. "Brina. I work in this museum, I live in a one-bedroom apartment, and I lead a normal life. As far as you're concerned, you don't know me. We've never met, and I'd like to keep it that way. Goodbye."

Turning on her heel once more, Brina ventured further into the museum, through the World War II exhibits and hoped that the man from her past would simply leave and never come back. Brina knew him better though and she knew, above anything else, he was never one to give up. "Well, it's certainly a pleasure to meet you, Brina." he continued to walk after her. "I'm Mr. Wednesday, and boy do I have an opportunity for you."

"Mr. Wednesday?" Brina almost laughed. "That's what you're going by now? Out of all the names you've claimed over the centuries, that's what you pick?"

"What, you don't like it? I think it has a certain ring to it." Wednesday straightened his tie with a wicked grin on his face. "An unforgettable name for an unforgettable man."

"Well, you've got one thing right; you certainly are unforgettable," Brina admitted. "Not that that is always a good thing."

Wednesday smirked. "So, now that we've gotten the pleasantries out of the way, would you like to hear what I've traveled all this way to tell you?"

"Not really."

"Great." Wednesday clapped his hands together, completely ignoring Brina's answer altogether. "War."

Brina paused, waiting for what was surely to be the rest of his pitch. When nothing more came, however, Brina folded her arms across her chest and cocked a single brow. "War? That's it?" she felt the anger build once more. "You track me down, come all the way to my place of work, and disrupt my life with one word? One fucking word?!"

"Excuse me for thinking there wouldn't need to be much more than that to pique the interest of a war goddess herself." 

"I told you, I'm no goddess. Not anymore."

"No, but you could be again."

Brina would be lying if that statement didn't grab her by the shoulders and hold her in place, leaving her wanting more. Brina had spent every day for ages dreaming about having her old life back; the life where she ruled over warriors and drew strength from her many adoring worshipers. There was nothing more in the world she wanted more, but Brina knew better than to trust the man before her. She had been tricked by his charm once before and still carried the emotional scars with her that proved how flawed of an idea that had been. 

"I may have been foolish enough to trust you once, but I refuse to be foolish enough to make the same mistake twice," Brina told him plainly. 

Turning his back to the woman, Wednesday began to examine the exhibits around him, paying special attention to the weapons on display in the glass cases. With a single finger tracing the edge of the glass, he sighed. "How war has changed." his eyes remained glued to the artifacts as he spoke. "It used to be a noble act. Men going to war over honour, dignity, family values. They fought with their hands and the weapons they crafted with those very hands. They prayed to the gods above to keep them safe. They prayed to you. Now these men...these men with no honour, no dignity, no family values...they roll in on their machines and take out hundreds of people with the press of a single button, never knowing what it is truly like to take a life. They pray to but one god, and what good does he do them? What does he bring his many adoring worshipers? The belief in the old gods in fading fast and the new gods are taking over, but not for long. So I ask you, oh woman of the warriors, my eyes and ears, goddess of battle and war, join me in one final fight and I promise you, men will once again be praying to you as they lay their lives on the line and their fate in your hands." 

The words and promises spilling from Wednesday's mouth were irresistible. Oh, how Brina craved to be worshiped once again by warriors big and small, old and young. With nothing more to lose and her curiosity getting the better of her, Brina drew in a deep breath. "How?"

The corners of Wednesday's mouth curled into a mischievous and triumphant smile. "That, my dear, is the fun part." 


	3. New Beginnings Come with a Price

Jack's Crocodile Bar was just as dingy and divey as Brina remembered it, and although the establishment had never been known to host many fond memories, the woman still felt a calming sense of nostalgia wash over her as she stepped up to the counter. With the crocodile head looming over her and the bright lights in the shape of teeth shining down hard, Brina found herself recalling the first time she had stepped into the bar herself; the time she had lost her way, and without knowing what else to do, made a deal with the devil. 

"Well, well, well." the familiar voice of Jack herself could be heard as the older woman made her way over. "Will you look who it is. Never thought I'd see you in here again for as long as I lived."

"Never thought I'd see myself in here again for as long as _I_ lived." Brina rested her arms on the counter and sighed. "And that's saying something."

With the flash of one of her warm, welcoming smiles, Jack tossed a tea towel over her shoulder. "What'll it be? The usual?"

"No, no, water is fine." Brina requested. "I'm not looking for a good time. In fact, I'm trying to stay as sharp as possible."

Jack smirked. "Not very often I hear that in a place like this, but suit yourself, one water it is."

As the bar's owner turned her back to grab a glass and fill it with some ice, a dark-skinned gentleman walked up next to Brina, his dress-shirt and overwhelming attractiveness — not to mention the fact that he was looking around like a lost puppy — making him stand out like a sore thumb. 

Intrigued, Brina turned to face the man. Something about him seemed different, and it wasn't just the clothes and demeanor. "Let me guess. You're not from around here?"

Slightly taken aback that someone was speaking to him, the man looked down at Brina before letting out a nervous chuckle. "That obvious?" 

"I'm really good at reading people." Brina smiled. "But yeah, it's pretty obvious."

Catching the hint of Irish on Brina's voice, the man shrugged. "Well, according to your accent, neither are you."

Brina laughed. "Originally, no, you're right."

Before either one of the new acquaintances could say another word, Jack returned with a glass of water in hand. "Here you go, dear." she slid the drink in front of Brina before greeting her new guest with a sly glance. "Hello, kitty. What can I get you?"

Grabbing one of the menus, the man exhaled. "Uh, what can I get for next to nothing?"

"Buffalo Burger's great. Chili's better." Jack suggested. "Both together will make a happy man."

The man glanced down at the menu again, quickly scanning the food choices that fit his low budget. "Yeah. My wife makes a great chili."

Jack eyed the man up some more, his handsome face and toned body creating a welcomed difference from the usual clientele. "You ain't ever had chili like this, cutie. I got the best chili in the state."

Closing the menu and placing it back down onto the counter, the man reached into his back pocket for his wallet. "I can't afford both and gas money."

"Oh, sure you can." Jack grabbed the menu and tucked it underneath her arm. "Just don't make a mess, and stiff me on the tip. Permission granted."

With a wink, the flirtatious woman spun around and went to put the order in. Once the bar owner was out of earshot, the man chuckled once more, clearly having a weird day, to say the least. "She can be a little forward sometimes, but I mean, come on, look at you. Can you blame her?" Brina took a sip of her ice water after speaking up again.

"Ah, well..." the man wasn't sure how to respond to that. "I just hope she's right about that chili because I am starving."

Leaning against the counter, Brina shrugged. "Jack is a lot of things, but a liar is certainly not one of them. She does, in fact, have the best chili in the state. I can vouch for it."

"If it's so good, why aren't you having any?"

"I'm not here to eat."

"Or drink, apparently." the man gestured to the glass of water. 

"Or drink," Brina confirmed. "As much as I don't want to be, I'm here on business."

The man looked around the crocodile and swamp themed bar and furrowed his brows in confusion. "This doesn't really seem like the place for a normal business meeting."

"Well, that's probably because the business I'm meeting for is anything but normal." Brina took another sip of her drink, the cold glass beginning to collect condensation on the outside of it. "So, tell me, mystery man, what brings you here? You mentioned buying gas. Are you just passing by?"

"Yeah, yeah." the man's face fell slightly, and just when it seemed like he wasn't going to elaborate anymore, he spoke again. "I'm actually heading back home for a funeral. My wife's funeral, actually."

Brina's heart sunk, and suddenly, the once-innocent chili comment he had made earlier became much more depressing. "I'm sorry for your loss."

"Thank you." the man gave a thankful nod before holding his hand out. "I'm Shadow, by the way."

"What an interesting name." Brina returned the greeting. "I'm Brina. It's nice to meet you, Shadow, even if it is under such unfortunate circumstances."

"Likewise." 

While Shadow excused himself to use the bathroom, Brina held down the fort, her eyes peeled to the door as she waited for Wednesday to show up so she could get this goddamn meeting over with. After initially agreeing to the proposition, Brina found herself plagued by regret, but she knew that if she didn't at least see it through enough to hear how the whole thing would play out, Wednesday would never leave her alone.

By the time she had drunk half of her water and her mind had wandered somewhere far away from Wednesday or Shadow or anything having to do with the dingy bar she was currently in, Brina had almost completely forgotten about the meeting altogether. The mystery man she had just met was taking an unusually long time in the bathroom and the cunning old man she was waiting for had seemingly stood her up; that was until she felt a hand clamp down on her shoulder.

Jumping slightly, Brina whipped around and came face to face with the man himself, Wednesday. "Jeeze, so jumpy." Wednesday's eyes drifted to the non-alcoholic beverage in Brina's hand. "Maybe you should have a drink, ease those nerves a little." 

"Yeah, I think not," Brina grumbled as she took a few deep breaths to slow her heart rate back down. "You're late, you know."

"Oh, on the contrary, I arrived exactly when I said I would. I just had other matters to deal with." Wednesday stepped to the side and held his arm out as if he were presenting a prize on a game show. "Speaking of which, Brina, I'd like you to meet my 'other matters', Shadow Moon."

Once Wednesday was standing to the side, Brina had a clear view of the man she had met for the first time not ten minutes ago sitting at one of the tables, his buffalo burger and chili in front of him and a newspaper in his hands. 

Knowing Wednesday's tricks all too well, Brina scoffed. "Well, not that this will come to a surprise to you, but we've actually already met."

"I thought as much." Wednesday didn't even try to deny it.

"Listen, Wednesday, I get this whole war crusade that you're on, I do, but whoever that Shadow Moon guy is, he's not your guy." Brina lowered her voice to a whisper that was still loud enough to be heard over the general noise of the bar. "I mean, I'm sure you already know this, but the man's wife just died."

"Exactly!" Wednesday's eyes lit up. "He's completely unattached."

"That's fucked up."

"That's business, sweet cheeks. Now, are you in, or not?"

After Wednesday ordered a drink from the bartender, the two turned to face Shadow, their backs against the counter and their eyes glued to the man who was frantically reading whatever was on the front page of the newspaper in his hands.

"What's he reading?" Brina asked in a hushed tone.

"The article on his wife's and best friend's death."

Brina almost choked on the water she had just swallowed. "Wow, you really are a sick fuck, aren't you?"

Before Wednesday could respond, Shadow looked up from his newspaper, looked the older gentleman in the eyes, and shrugged. "You're right. I'm broke." he didn't even acknowledge the fact that the woman he had met ten minutes ago was somehow in on this whole situation he had found himself in. "I don't have a job. But you know, I'm not gonna work for anyone who's got worse luck than me, so call." he pulled a coin out of his pocket and prepared to flip it. 

Sliding off of the crocodile head-shaped barstool he was sitting on, Wednesday walked over to the table, drink still in hand. "If I win, you work for me?"

Shadow shrugged; a shrug that meant he had nothing left to lose. "Yeah."

Brina's hand tightened around her glass until her knuckles turned white. At that very moment, Brina saw so much of herself in Shadow that she could practically replace him with herself and the situation would be exactly the same. That's how Wednesday had found her when he had come to her with his deal; broken, alone, and willing to do almost anything.

Brina wanted so badly to warn Shadow, to tell him to run for the hills and never look back, but she knew that once Wednesday wanted something, he got it. Unfortunately, when dealing with the crooked old man, there was nothing you could do but take the leap and learn from your own mistakes.

"Heads," Wednesday called it.

After flipping the coin, Shadow placed it onto the back of his hand and covered the results with his other hand, refusing to look at the outcome. "Tails. I rigged the toss." he slammed the coin down on the table and slid it over to Wednesday, his hand still covering the result.

"Rigged games are the easiest to beat," Wednesday said matter-of-factly.

"It is always going to be tails because I don't want to work for you." Shadow leaned across the table, his voice low and demanding, and for a split second, Brina thought he had actually done it; she thought he had actually escaped Wednesday's grasp. "You're a little creepy, and you're forward and familiar, and I don't like it. I don't like you."

Unphased, Wednesday finished off his drink. "It's not always going to be tails." he turned to order another drink as Shadow lifted his palm up, revealing the heads side of the coin. "We'll negotiate the terms of your employment over a drink. In the meantime, Shadow, I'd like you to meet Brina."

"Yeah." Shadow's eyes were wide like he had just seen a ghost. "We've already met."

"I know," Wednesday smirked before disappearing into the crowd.

Sliding into the seat across from Shadow, Brina gave the man a few seconds to process everything. "Who the hell is he?" Shadow was the first to speak.

"I wish I knew," Brina answered in a half-lie, knowing that no one knew everything about Wednesday and also knowing that Shadow was far from being ready to hear the parts of the real truth that she possessed. "You'll get used to it. In a weird, annoying grandfather sort of way, he kind of starts to grow on you a little bit... _when he's not being a conniving sociopath,_ " she muttered the last part under her breath.

Scoffing, Shadow tossed the coin up into the air again, and this time, as he had expected, it landed on tails. "Tails. Every fucking time." he flipped the coin one last time, but before it could land, a hand came out of nowhere and caught it mid-air.

"Coin tricks, is it?" the faded Irish accent of the tall redhead was like nails on a chalkboard to Brina. After opening his hand to reveal the coin was no longer there, the man made the object reappear before tossing it high into the air, where it stayed for an unusually long time without coming down. 

"Sweeney." Brina gritted her teeth. She would have been happy if the first time she had ever met the man could have been her last. "Ignore him, seriously," she warned Shadow. "The last thing he needs is encouragement."

"She-devil." the tall redhead, Sweeney, returned the sentiment. "It's been a while."

Brina sat up straight and folded her arms across her chest. "Not long enough."

"Oh, touchy, touchy. Glad to see you're still as feisty as ever." Sweeney sauntered around the back of Brina before leaning down, his lips just barely grazing her ear as he spoke. "You know how it turns me on."

"Oh, fuck off, will you?" Brina shoved him away hard, knowing no matter how hard she pushed, she could never actually hurt the behemoth of a man. 

"You'll come around eventually." Sweeney brushed off the rejection like water off of a duck's back before turning his attention back to Shadow. "You're working for our man, then."

Shadow, who had confusion plastered on his face, looked up at the tall man beside him. "Who are you?"

"I'm a leprechaun." Sweeney shoved his hands into his pockets.

"Okay, you're a little tall for a leprechaun."

"That's a stereotype and represents a very narrow view of the world."

Brina continued to watch and listen with an unamused facial expression as Sweeney did his best to mess with Shadow the best he could upon their first meeting. He had done the same to Brina when they had first met in America as well, but the only difference was, he hadn't stopped being so annoying since. 

"So what, you're from Ireland?" Shadow eyed Sweeney and then Brina. "Are you a leprechaun too?"

"Do not associate me with him." Brina would have taken offense to that if she hadn't known that Shadow didn't know any better. "We may hail from the same country, but that is where the similarity ends."

Sweeney just sighed. "I told you I'm a leprechaun. We don't come from Moscow, Russia. Or Moscow, Idaho, for that matter."

Trying his best to take Brina's advice, Shadow pushed the chili around the bowl with his spoon and attempted to tune the leprechaun out. However, when the coin from earlier finally dropped back down onto the table, his curiosity got the better of him.

"How much has our man told you?" Sweeney leaned in. 

Taking a bite of the chili, Shadow shook his head. "No details."

"Devil's in the details." Sweeney countered. "Do you know who he is? Who he really is?"

As Shadow refused to answer and Brina glared Sweeney down, Wednesday finally came back, a tray of drinks on hand. "Well, I never. Mad Sweeney as I live and breathe. What a surprise. Southern comfort and coke for you." he began handing out the beverages. "Whiskey for the lady, Jack Daniel's for me." he then slid three shot glasses across the table to Shadow. "And these are for you, Shadow Moon."

As Sweeney gulped his drink in mere seconds, Brina finally gave in and picked up the alcohol. "Fuck it." she took a swig, knowing full well that if the evening was to continue on like it currently was, she was going to need something stiff to get her through it.

Eyeing up the shots, Shadow narrowed his eyes. "What is it?" he lifted the first glass and took a sniff before downing it. "Tastes like prison hooch, brewed in a garbage bag with rotten fruit."

"But sweeter, smoother, stranger," Wednesday explained. "It's mead - honey wine. Drink of heroes, drink of the gods." 

"Tastes like a drunken diabetic's piss." Sweeney disagreed.

"Amen." Brina found herself agreeing with Sweeney, which was an extremely rare occurrence. 

Wednesday brushed off the opinion of the other two and kept his attention on Shadow. "It's a tradition. It seals our bargain."

Dropping his spoon back into the chili bowl, Shadow groaned in frustration. "We don't have a bargain."

"Of course we do. I won the toss. You work for me now." Wednesday asserted, unwilling to back down, like usual. "You're my aide-de-camp. My castellan. Protect and serve. You drive where needs driving to. You take care of things generally on my behalf. And in an emergency, and in an emergency only, you kick the asses of those whose asses require kicking. And in the unlikely event of my death, you will hold my vigil."

With her head resting in her hands, Brina finished off her whiskey as she half-listened to the same speech, more or less, that she had had spewed at her decades ago. "He's hustling you. He's a hustler." Sweeney wasn't afraid to speak up as he began throwing darts into a dartboard, each and every one landing in the bullseye. 

"Damn right I'm a hustler, swindler, cheater, and liar," Wednesday added to the list of nefarious things that he was. "That's why I need assistance." 

Chewing on his bottom lip, his anger clearly rising, Shadow slapped his palm down onto the tabletop. "Fine. You've told me what you want, but you want to know what I want?"

"Of course I do." Wednesday slowly and calmly sipped his Jack Daniel's. "Name your price."

"I just want to go to my wife's funeral. Okay? I just want to say goodbye. Now after that, yeah, fine, I'll work for you for two-thousand dollars a week." Shadow named his price. "You want me to hurt people? I mean, I'll hurt people if they try to hurt you. But I'm not gonna hurt anyone for fun or profit. I'll work for you up to which point you start to piss me off, and then I'm gone."

"Good. We have a compact." Wednesday smiled wide as he pointed to the last two remaining mead shots. "The second seals the deal, the third is the charm, and we're done."

Grabbing the second shot, Shadow downed it before reaching for the third, clinking it against Wednesday's glass, and downing that one as well. "Welcome to the team." Brina almost mocked.

"There." Wednesday seemed pleased as punch as he spat into his hand and held it out toward Shadow. "You're my man now."

Reluctantly, Shadow reached across the table and shook Wednesday's hand. With a triumphant smile, much like the one he had dawned after convincing Brina to join him, Wednesday tossed the coin from the table up. "It'll be heads," he stated as Shadow caught it, and sure enough, it was heads. 

"It's all part of the show." Brina tried to explain when Shadow flashed her a worried and perplexed look after Wednesday had walked off. 

Walking back over from the dartboard, Sweeney huffed. "Well, if it's coin tricks we're doing...watch this." he began to pluck coins of out the air left and right, one of his favourite tricks to do. 

Once Shadow was thoroughly freaked out by the number of coins Sweeney was pulling from thin air, he stood up from his seat and took a step back. "Now that's a coin trick for you," Sweeney noted after spitting a coin out of his mouth and into his empty glass. 

"Oh, will you cut it out?" Brina took the glass of coins and dumped it out onto the floor. "Your cheesy party tricks aren't impressing anyone."

"Tell that to him." Sweeney pointed out the stunned look on Shadow's face.

Pulling himself together, Shadow swallowed hard. "How'd you do it?"

"With panache," Sweeney stated as he flicked yet another coin out of his hand and into the glass.

"So what, you loaded coins up your sleeves?" Shadow guessed.

"Sounds like a lot of work to me." Sweeney kept walking around the table, all the while flicking coins into his glass. "It's easier just to pluck them out of the air. Simplest trick in the world."

"How'd you do it?" Shadow asked again.

Sweeney shook his head. "Tell you what." he squared up in front of Shadow and balled his fists. "I'll fight you for it."

"Oh, for crying out loud!" Brina exclaimed just when she thought Sweeney's antics couldn't get any more outrageous. "No one is fighting anyone!"

Despite her desperate pleas, however, the men seemed to completely ignore Brina. "Yeah?" Shadow surprisingly took a step toward Sweeney, making it look like he was game to brawl. 

"Come on." Sweeney stepped closer as well, making the height difference between the men even more noticeable. Sweeney seriously was the tallest leprechaun to ever live.

Exhaling slowly, Shadow brought his head a little closer before whispering, "I'm not fighting you."

Clearly unpleased with Shadow's answer, Sweeney pulled another coin out of nowhere right in front of Shadow's face, just to push him even further. "Real gold, if you're wondering. Win or lose, and you're going to lose. It's yours if you fight me."

"Remeber when I said to ignore him and not to encourage him?" Brina turned to Shadow. "This would be a really great time to take that advice into consideration."

Returning to the table, Wednesday echoed Shadow's answer. "He said he doesn't want to fight you."

"Come on." Sweeney practically begged, just rearing to get some action. "Big fella like you. Who'd have thought you'd be a fucking coward?" he then began to smell the air, almost comically, before lowering his head toward the newspaper. "Whiff of death on the page. Laura Moon. Oh, is this your old lady's obituary?" he then proceeded to smack Shadow in the head with the paper. 

"Okay, enough is enough." Brina tried to snatch the paper out of Sweeney's hand. "This is getting a little too hostile, even for you."

Holding the newspaper over his head, too high for Brina to reach, Sweeney stepped back. "This don't concern you, she-devil, so fuck off." he then looked back at the photo of Laura Moon and then to Shadow. "She was a fine piece of-"

Before Sweeney could even finish the sleazy statement, Shadow lurched across the table and punched Sweeney dead center on the nose. Sweeney stumbled back a few steps, and as Shadow rounded the table, Brina knew that all hell was about to break loose.

"Oh, no." Brina buried her face in her hands. "Not again."

"Hey, everybody!" Sweeney caught the attention of the bar patrons as they started to clear out, making room for the fight to take place. "There's gonna be a lesson learned," he warned as he stripped off his jean jacket and cowboy shirt, leaving him in just his wifebeater and suspenders. "Watch this."

As the two began to punch and kick the shit out of one another, Brina stood up from her seat and made her way over to the bar where she ordered another drink. Turns out, if she was going to make it through this night, she was going to need way more than just one drink. 

Within seconds of the fight breaking out, Sweeney had broken a bottle over Shadow's head and thrown him over one of the tables. The large leprechaun, despite his many, many faults, did have one semi-redeeming quality, if you could even call it that — he had a knack for smacking the ever-living daylights out of someone.

After getting another drink, this time a double, Brina returned to the table where she and Wednesday — unimpressed, as usual — watched the smack-down play out.

Grabbing an unattended beer off of the bar, Sweeney began to chug it, his finger waving Shadow on while he waited for the smaller man to stand back up again. Once finished, Sweeney tossed the glass at Shadow's head, but luckily, he ducked right on time. Shadow managed to get a few good hits in here and there, but as much as she hated to admit it, if Brina were a betting girl, her money would be on Sweeney.

After a particularly brutal hit that sent Sweeney to the ground, the leprechaun just smiled. "Atta boy." he praised. "Now you're fighting for the joy of it, for the sheer unholy fucking delight of it!"

After another minute or so of the same back and forth, Shadow finally managed to get Sweeney pinned up against the counter where he nailed him in the face over and over again until the larger man's mouth and face were a brighter shade of red than his hair.

"Can you feel the joy rising in your veins like the sap in the springtime?" Sweeney chuckled, blood pouring from his mouth like a goddamn waterfall. 

After making eye contact with Jack, who didn't look impressed at all, Shadow backed away. "We're done."

Shadow started to make his way back over to the table, but before he could sit down again, Sweeney came out of nowhere and sucker-punched him. "It ain't over til I say it is," Sweeney demanded, and just like that, the fight was back in action. 

Holding up his glass, Wednesday smiled maniacally. "Here's to a new chapter in our stories."

Feeling the hint of a smirk work its way onto her mouth, Brina raised her glass as well and tapped it against Wednesday's. "To a new chapter." she echoed before the both of them threw back their drinks and waited for the carnage to end. 


	4. Out with the Old and In with the New

After a late-night and an early morning of cleaning up both of the participants in what had to be one of the most destructive fights Jack's Crocodile Bar had ever seen, Brina laid Sweeney down in a booth seat so he could sleep off his wounds and definite alcohol poisoning before helping Wednesday load Shadow into the backseat of his beloved car, Betty. 

"You know, when you said we were going to war, I was expecting a little more than a common bar fight." Brina sighed as she plopped down into the passenger's seat of the vehicle.

Turning around for a moment to make sure Shadow was doing okay, the man slumped over in the backseat as he too slept off his injuries and alcohol, Wednesday turned the keys in the old but well taken care of car's ignition. With the roar of the engine coming to life, the old man smiled. "Trust me, by the time all is said and done, you will have your war. I promise." Wednesday pulled out of the bar's parking lot just as the sun was coming up over the horizon. "And when do I ever break a promise?"

══════════════════

With her hand hanging out of the open car window, Brina watched as the grassy fields came and went. Quite a while ago Wednesday had turned off of the busy streets and ever since they had been traveling along old country roads, which Brina wasn't complaining about because the views were much nicer and the ambiance was much quieter and relaxing. 

Although Brina had no idea where Wednesday was taking her and Shadow, she accepted that asking wouldn't change the destination and decided to just sit back, enjoy the ride, and let the final location be a surprise.

"You may have drank a lot," Wednesday spoke up out of nowhere, pulling Brina from her thoughts and indicating that Shadow had woken up. "Let it come back to you. So what do you know, huh?"

"I know I'm in pain." Shadow groaned as he sat up. "And I know I recently said yes to something stupid."

Wednesday nodded as he peered at Shadow through the rearview mirror. "That may be true."

Brina chuckled to herself a little. "That is most definitely true."

Popping his head up between Brina and Wednesday, Shadow pulled a gold coin out from somewhere and inspected it. "Did he teach me that trick?"

"You know, I believe he did," Wednesday answered.

"Don't suppose you heard him."

"No such luck." 

Taking a few more seconds to process everything that had happened the night before, Shadow reached up and touched some of the bruised and red spots on his skin where he had taken a beating. "Where's my car?" he inquired out of nowhere, more and more pieces of the puzzle slowly coming back to him.

"Oh, I dumped it," Wednesday admitted without a speck of guilt; just one of the many tasks he had completed while he left Brina at the bar to babysit the two drunken idiots. "Red's not your colour, and don't get used to this. You're gonna be driving Betty here from now on. I just thought you could use some sleep. It's not every day a man gets to bury his wife."

"And what about her?" Shadow looked to Brina. "Does she drive as well?"

Brina snorted. "No, no, no. Unlike you, I'm here because I chose to be, not because I have to be. I am going to happily sit back and enjoy the scenery."

A few more miles up the road, Wednesday pulled off at a rest stop so Shadow could freshen up and change into his suit — the suit that Wednesday had been nice enough to retrieve from the red car before dumping it. While the worse-for-wear man cleaned himself up in the bathroom, Brina and Wednesday waited in the car.

"So you really think he's your guy?" Brina asked as she fished a pair of sunglasses out of her pocket and put them on. "I mean, sure, he held his own pretty well against Sweeney, but what we're doing is going to take a lot more than a determined demeanor and a hard fist."

"He's the one." Wednesday gave a definitive nod. 

Brina knew she wanted to ask more but she also already knew that Wednesday was someone who often gave answers that didn't, in fact, answer the question he had been asked. "Does he even know what's really going on here?" she cocked a brow at the man in the driver's seat. "I mean, does he know what we are?"

"He will, all in due time," Wednesday assured the woman as the bathroom door creaked open again and Shadow started back for the vehicle. "He's just not ready yet. Trust me, I'll know when he's ready to know."

After Shadow crawled back into the back seat, looking a whole lot better than he did minutes before, Wednesday drove back out onto the open road and the journey continued without so much as another word. An hour or so later, the trio entered Eagle Point, Oregon. 

Having everything already planned out, like he always did, Wednesday located the nearest Motel America and stopped so he could check-in. "I have preparations and communications to keep us busy enough, after which we will entertain ourselves," Wednesday informed Shadow as he handed over the keys to the car. "Now I'll tell you this once and once only ever. Take all the time you need."

Taking the keys from Wednesday, Shadow sat down in the driver's seat and drove off, leaving the two gods alone in the Motel America parking lot. "So..." Brina held her hand out for Wednesday to hand over her room key. "What sort of preparations and communications do you have to keep us busy?"

"That, my dear, is, unfortunately, none of your business." Wednesday turned on his heel and headed to put his things away in his room. "I have complete faith that you are able to find something to pass the time with, but don't go too far. I'll need you back here sooner than you think."

"What am I supposed to-" Brina started to ask, but before she could get her full question out, Wednesday had disappeared inside of his room and slammed the door shut behind himself. "Great." Brina huffed as she sauntered over to her own room and let herself in. "What in god's name have I gotten myself into this time?" she questioned herself as she inspected the room. "Haven't I learned my lesson?"

Brina tried her very best to occupy herself, but without knowing the town well enough to go exploring and still be able to find her way back when Wednesday needed her, the only thing to do really was to sit in the dark motel room and watch TV. With remote in hand, Brina flipped through channel after channel before settling on something that looked interesting enough. 

After a few episodes of some melodramatic repo show that did nothing but rot the brain of its viewers, Brina turned the volume down just enough so it provided some background noise and decided to take a nap. After getting no sleep the night before thanks to dumb and dumber, Brina was exhausted and running on fumes, and without knowing when or what Wednesday would need her for, she decided that a quick power nap couldn't hurt.

However, what was supposed to be a quick nap turned into a full eight hours of sleep, and when Brina finally opened her eyes again, the TV still playing in the background, the sky outside was dark and the street lamps had turned on. 

Sitting up with a tired groan, Brina ran her hands over her face before lifting her arms into the air and stretching. While the nap had most certainly helped, it had also somehow left Brina feeling a tad tired still, so with whatever remaining time she had left to kill, she opted for a nice hot shower to wake herself up. 

The warm water was a big game-changer, and as she stepped out onto the bathmat on the tile floor, a towel wrapped around her body, Brina felt awake and alert. Just as the woman was about to dry her hair, she heard a noise, almost like a faint voice, coming from her room. 

Brina's body flooded with a sense of morbid curiosity. Opening the bathroom door just enough to get her head through, Brina peered out into her seemingly empty room. "Hello?" she called, but no answer came. "Is anyone there?" she tried again, but with the same results, she shrugged off the sound.

Before she could close the bathroom door again, however, the noise sounded again. " _Brina._ " someone had clearly spoken her name.

Without so much as a second thought, Brina assumed someone must be at the door for her. "One second!" she called as she wrapped the towel tighter around her body and made her way to the door. When she looked through the peep-hole however, no one was there. "What the-"

_"Brina."_

The voice wasn't coming from outside the room, it was coming from inside. Spinning around, her back pressed firmly to the door and her hand reaching for the doorknob in case she had to make a run for it, Brina decided to speak again. "Hello?"

 _"Hello, Brina."_ the voice was low and almost inaudible, but it was there. _"Or should I say, Badb Catha, The Morrígan, goddess of battle and war?"_

Brina's eyes scanned the room frantically, but from what she could see, she was the only person in there. With a burst of bravery, Brina marched over to the closet, and with the one hand that wasn't holding her towel up, threw the doors open. Empty. "Okay, am I going crazy?" Brina's breathing became uneven. 

_"You're not crazy."_

"Who said that?" Brina snapped. 

_"Over here."_ the voice drew her closer, and finally, Brina noticed that the TV was no longer playing the show she had put on, but instead it had turned to pure static. _"There you go. Hello."_

Brina blinked a few times, trying to tell if what was happening was real or if she was dreaming. "Hello." she finally replied again. 

_"Hello, Brina. It's so good to finally meet you."_ the black spots in the TV static began to move, forming together to create the outline of a woman's face. _"I've been meaning to talk to you for a while now, but something like this...it requires an intimate meeting, woman to woman."_

"Who are you?" Brina stepped closer to the television screen. 

_"Honey, I am the future."_ the black dots continued to move and contort to portray the facial expressions of the woman on screen. _"The man you are working for now, he is the past. I am tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow. Your boss, he isn't even yesterday. I'm here with a proposition."_

Holding her free hand up, Brina waved it in dismissal. "You must be one of the new gods. Well, thanks, but no thanks. I've had enough propositions for one lifetime."

_"I know you've been screwed over left and right, and I gotta tell you, I don't like it. I would never do that to you. Us women have got to stick together, especially in a world run by men. Whatever he's giving you, I can offer so much more. You want glory? Fine. You want fortune? I've got you covered. You want your war? I will give you the war you never knew you could have."_

Brina was silent, her mind working so fast to process everything that she was unable to speak for the time being. She tried to think of something to say, but somehow, the words just wouldn't come out. 

_"That's okay."_ the static woman winked. _"You think about it. Take your time. It's an important decision."_

Then, just like that, as if the TV had never switched to static, the previous channel began to play again. Standing there, almost frozen in place, Brina stared at the TV, half excepting it to change back to the static at any moment. 

As Brina tried to shake off her weird first encounter with one of the new gods, more voices slowly became audible, but this time, they were for sure coming from outside of the motel room. After pulling her clothes back on, her hair still wet, Brina threw open the door. With her arrival, both Shadow and Wednesday, who had been standing in the parking lot, turned to her. 

"What is going on out here?" Brina asked, noticing that Shadow's facial expression portrayed aggravation and confusion while his once white dress shirt was now bright red and soaked in what looked like blood. 

"I'll tell you what's going on." Shadow glared at Wednesday. "I was just hijacked by a toad-skin-smokin' punk in a virtual fucking limo. He said to tell you that he's reprogrammed reality. 

"Mmm-mm-mm." Wednesday caught on to what was going on. "What a little asshole."

Shadow exhaled. "Oh, you know him?"

Wednesday nodded. "Oh, I know who he is. They don't have a clue. They don't have a fucking clue."

"I don't have a fucking clue. Okay?" Shadow was becoming more irate by the second. "I don't give a fuck if they don't have a fucking clue. I want one. Give me a fucking clue."

"Clues were not in the agreement."

"Oh, neither was my ass hanging from a fucking tree." Shadow got up in Wednesday's face as he grabbed the collar of his shirt and tugged hard. "I was lynched. Strange fuckin' fruit."

"Plucked plucky fruit." Wednesday corrected. "Here you stand. Unusual outcome for a lynching. Chalk it all up to occupational hazard. And occupational hazard gets hazard pay. Double your salary. That do it?"

As the anger began to drain from Shadow, the dark-skinned man drew in a deep breath. "It'll do something."

"Good. Compact amended." Wednesday smiled. "How much longer you gonna be in this town?"

Shadow shrugged, his mind clearly on other things besides how much longer he was going to stay in Eagle Point. "I don't know. Maybe another day."

"You're done here, we're done here," Wednesday told him. "Goodnight. Your first bed as a free man. Enjoy it."

Without knowing what else to do, Shadow scoffed before starting to head toward his room. "Shadow?" Wednesday stopped him before he could disappear for the night. "About that little shit in the big limo. An assault on you is an insult to me. Don't think because I didn't lose my temper I'm not angry or am lacking a plan."

With that, Shadow entered his motel room and slowly shut the door behind himself. "Let me guess, another one of the new gods?" Brina folded her arms across her chest and leaned against her room's doorway. 

"Another one?" Wednesday inquired. "When were you made aware of your first one?"

Brina smirked. "I mean, I've always known they existed, ever since the first one popped up and started collecting worshipers like goddamn arcade tickets. My first personal experience however? That occurred about five minutes ago inside this very room. The TV said it had a proposition for me. Sound familiar?"

Tucking his hands into the pockets of the white fluffy bathrobe he was wearing, Wednesday only shrugged. "I don't suspect that will be the last time they try to steal one of you from me," he stated plainly. "I'm not worried about you though. You, Brina...I know where your loyalties lie, even if you don't." 


	5. Better Dead Than Forgotten

Standing across the street from a baby blue house with white trimming and red window shudders, Brina leaned against the polished black car that Wednesday affectionately named Betty and tapped her foot against the pavement. 

Not too much later, the last mover exited the house, loaded up the final belonging into the back of his moving van, and drove off. Once the truck was gone, all that was left was Shadow, who was standing outside of his house — the house that he had just spent the day packing up.

It was a nice house. A house that someone could see themselves moving into and creating a family inside of. A house that someone could call home. Sadly, though, this house would never be a home to Shadow Moon ever again.

"You going to miss it?" Wednesday asked.

Turning around, not expecting to see the two there but not being at all shocked by their presence, Shadow shook his head. "Eagle Point? No. Too many Laura memories. Never really had a life here. It's Laura's town."

Pushing himself off of the car that he had been leaning on, Wednesday crossed the street toward Shadow. "Too many people tell each other not to repress their emotions, to release their feelings, to let the pain go. There's a lot to be said for bottling up emotions. I'm gonna tell you something and you're gonna want to hurt me, but what I say has gotta be said. So I want you to consider my words very carefully and refrain from knocking my teeth out."

Curious as to what was about to be said, Brina took a few steps closer herself so that she could hear Wednesday loud and clear. "Say it." Shadow encouraged Wednesday to speak his mind.

"Word on the street is your wife died sucking your best friend's cock." Wednesday didn't even try to sugar coat it. "And you, sir, are only obligated to feel bad about that for so long."

There was a pregnant pause following Wednesday's statement, and instead of punching the older man out, as Brina had half-expected, Shadow forced a smile. "Thank you...for warning me." he picked up the duffle bag by his feet before walking towards the car. 

With a cheeky grin on his face, Wednesday bent down and picked up a white dandelion before joining Brina and Shadow in the vehicle. Without another word said between the three, Shadow took his place in the driver's seat, Wednesday settled himself in the passenger's seat, and Brina sprawled out in the back, excited and ready to enjoy the drive ahead of them. 

Before long, the trio was back on the road, driving through fields and on roads that no one else seemed to be using. With the radio on low playing a classic from the band Creedance Clearwater Revival, Brina popped her sunglasses back on and let her hair blow in the wind. 

Watching Shadow carefully, a coin flipping between his fingers with ease, Wednesday waited until the time was right before flicking the coin into the air and thus, making it disappear; easily recreating the trick that Sweeney had mistified Shadow with at the bar.

At first, Shadow was shocked all over again, but then he just chuckled. "Why coin tricks?" Wednesday inclined. "You don't really have the personality to be a magician." he plucked the coin out of thin air. "You can't weave the stories that are necessary for belief unless you have a little personality."

"Wow." Shadow's mouth fell open in disbelief, and as Wednesday tossed the coin to him, he ripped one hand off of the steering wheel and caught it.

Wednesday's eyes followed the coin as it danced between Shadow's fingers. "You do have craft, though."

"Thank you." 

Leaning forward, Brina plucked the coin from Shadow's hand and attempted to try the beginner trick that the two men had perfected, but unlike them, she was useless when it came to coin tricks. Within seconds, the coin had slipped from the woman's fingers and dropped down onto the bench seat between Shadow and Wednesday. "Ah, I'll just stick to what I'm good at." Brina flopped back onto her seat and grinned.

Wednesday rolled his eyes. "And what would that be, exactly?"

"Isn't it obvious?" Brina tipped her sunglasses down the bridge of her nose and peered over them. "Making you two look good."

With a hardy laugh, Wednesday pointed to the upcoming road. "Turn off here."

Shadow followed Wednesday's finger with his eyes. "No, the highway's ahead."

"We're not taking the highway. Not now, not ever." Wednesday demanded. "No highways."

"Okay, okay, no highways." Shadow followed the older gentleman's strict rule and made a right turn onto the gravel road. "Why no highways?"

"Yeah?" Brina echoed Shadow's curiosity. "Why no highways? We'd get wherever we're going a whole heck of a lot faster."

"Seen one, seen 'em all," Wednesday explained. "No chance for serendipitous lovely. Let there be beauty where there can be. And keep her under seventy, would you, huh? Betty likes a slow ride."

Easing up on the gas and slowing the vehicle down, Shadow exchanged a look with Brina through the rearview mirror. "So what's the plan?"

"Oh, this one is full of good questions today." Brina piped up yet again, really trying to play it off as if she too had no idea what Wednesday had in store for them. "I would also really love to know where we are going and what we are doing."

"Plan is we will be meeting with a number of people preeminent in their respective fields. And then we will rendezvous at one of the most important places in the entire country." Wednesday informed the two on what he had in store for them.

Keeping his eyes on the road, Shadow carried on the conversation, eager to find out as many details as possible. "Where is the most important place in the country?"

"One of the most important places." Wednesday corrected. "Opinion is justifiably varied. But we will be stopping in Chigaco first."

Shadow furrowed his brows. "What's in Chicago?"

Folding her arms across her chest, Brina slouched down in the backseat and huffed. She knew exactly what was in Chicago, and to say the least, she wasn't too excited to see him again. "My hammer." Wednesday kept his answer as vague as possible before rolling down his window, pulling out the dandelion he had picked earlier, and blowing the fluffy white seeds into the wind.

══════════════════

Passing through a small town, Wednesday told Shadow to pull over on account of he had a meeting scheduled at a local diner and they were in need of some supplies. After giving Shadow a shopping list about a grand in cash, Wednesday set him loose. 

"And what about me?" Brina inquired as she and Wednesday stood in the doorway of the diner. "Do I have to fuck off as well?"

"Usually, I'd say yes, but I do actually have an errand I need you to run." 

Brina's eyebrows perked up with intrigue. "Wow, finally you trust me enough to set me loose. What's the errand?" 

"Well, it's more of a favour." Wednesday tried to beat around the bush a little in an attempt to keep from disappointing the already on-edge woman. Pulling out two twenty-dollar bills from his pocket, Wednesday presented the gift to Brina like a grandmother would her grandchild on their birthday. "Grab us some food for the road, will you?"

Brina's face fell. "You're kidding me, right? We are literally standing in a diner right now. Walk five steps to the counter and get yourself some damn food. I'm not even hungry, anyway."

"This place looks like it doesn't even know how to make a decent cup of coffee." Wednesday wiggled the bills in front of Brina's face. "Just take the cash and scram. Be back in thirty minutes."

Huffing, Brina snatched the money before stuffing it roughly into her pocket. "This is bullshit." she snapped. "I know you're just trying to get rid of me. You know I'm not Shadow, right? I am fully aware of the world we live in. You can't just expect me to follow you around the countryside on some hail-mary mission and leave me in the dark."

"You're not in the dark. You're in the shade, and when the time is right, I'll pull you from the sidelines." Wednesday clapped his hand down onto Brina's shoulder. "Now, I'd love a ham sandwich if you can track down a good one in this town."

Rolling her eyes but knowing she had little to no choice on the matter, Brina turned on her heel and exited the diner just a man in a blue suit and sunglasses passed her on his way inside. Something seemed familiar about the man, but because the encounter had been so short, there was no time for Brina to recall if she had actually met the man before or not.

With her hands in her pockets, Brina started down the sidewalk. She passed building after building, none of which sold any food at all, let alone a decent ham sandwich. After strolling a few blocks and making a left turn, Brina finally spotted a convenience store. 

Not in the mood to care where she got the food from, Brina headed inside and was immediately blasted with cold air. Looking up from the counter, the teenage boy gave a quick nod of acknowledgment before returning to whatever game he was playing on his phone, the radio beside him blaring quite loudly and seemingly not messing with his concentration. 

Heading to the back where the refrigerators were, Brina scanned the pre-packaged sandwich options before grabbing three and some bottled waters as well. Once at the counter, Brina dumped her purchases in front of the boy and flashed a weak smile. 

Without a word, the boy began to scan the items and place them into a bag. "$25.67 please." he sighed, clearly unimpressed that someone had come in and dared to buy something during his precious phone time. 

"All I've got is two twenties." Brina pulled the cash out of her pocket and slapped it down beside her bagged items. 

Opening the register, the boy looked down and groaned. "I'm all out of tens. Give me a second," he said, and without so much as making eye contact, he disappeared into the back room. 

"Yup...I'll just wait here," Brina mumbled to herself, the radio much louder now that she was right up next to it. A few seconds passed, and when the boy still didn't return, the thought of just grabbing the bag and her cash and making a run for it crossed her mind. Before she could seriously consider theft, however, the radio's volume suddenly jumped up a few decibels. 

Startled by the sudden change in volume, Brina jumped a little. "Fuck's sake." she reached to turn the volume back down, but before she could, the music turned to static for a few moments and then shut off altogether, leaving the store in complete silence.

_"So, have you had the chance to think about my offer?"_

This time, Brina didn't so much as flinch. Wednesday, like usual, had been right when he predicted that the new gods would try to get to her again. "Nope." Brina popped the P, refusing to look at the radio and make herself seem crazy should the boy return and catch her speaking to the electronic device. "Haven't really had the time. Been a little busy."

_"Maybe you haven't seriously thought about it, but you've considered it. I know you have. You're curious as to what awaits you on the other side, and who could blame you? You know what they say...the grass is always greener."_

"Well, maybe I'm not looking for green grass." Brina turned the volume knob all the way down, hoping that would do something.

 _"Everyone is looking for green grass."_ the voice was still there, unsurprisingly. _"With you and Shadow, our team would have some serious manpower."_

Brina huffed. "What is it that you guys want with Shadow? Me, I get that. But him? Why him?"

 _"I'll give you a little more time."_ there was no answer to the question. _"Think about it. Really think about it."_

And just like that, the voice was gone and the music was back. Not a second later, the door to the back opened and the boy emerged with a handful of cash to re-stock the till with. Grabbing a ten and the remaining change, he handed it to Brina and pushed the bag toward her. "Have a good day." he sounded so monotone and fake that it was as if he was battery operated.

"Thanks. You too." Brina tucked the change away in her pocket before grabbing the bag and exiting the store. Taking her time on the walk back, she checked out a few shops here and there, and when the thirty minutes was finally up, she returned to the diner where she found Wednesday sitting alone. 

Dropping the bag onto the table, Brina slid into the booth opposite Wednesday and dug his change out for him. "How'd it go?" she asked as she handed over the ten-dollar bill and coins. 

"About as well as expected." Wednesday picked up the mug in front of himself and took a sip of the brown liquid. 

"Yeah, and how's that coffee?" 

Swallowing, Wednesday grimaced a little. "Horrible. Just like I said it would be." he then eyed the bag and began to dig around inside of it. "See, that wasn't so hard, was it? Did you find a decent ham sandwich?"

"No." Brina shook her head. "They're turkey."

"They were out of ham?"

"No."

Frowning, Wednesday pushed the bag to the side just as the diner door opened and Shadow walked in looking shaken up, to say the least. Sitting down next to Brina, he didn't make a peep. "Oh, you all gassed up and ready to go?" Wednesday looked at Shadow.

"I think I'm losing my mind," Shadow stated as if that were something you would just bring up in normal, everyday conversation.

"Well, when will you know for sure?" Wednesday inquired.

"I've heard of guys losing it when they get out." Shadow began to elaborate, but before he could get very far, Wednesday cut him off. 

"Are you trying to wiggle your way out of this job?"

Leaning forward, Shadow lowered his voice, his eyes as wide as dinner plates. "Lucy...I Love Lucy talked to me."

"The TV show?" Brina tried to clarify.

"No, Lucy herself." Shadow pressed his fingertips into his forehead and closed his eyes. "This is so fucking crazy."

"And like the rest of your life is sane?" Wednesday countered.

Shadow, who was very clearly on the edge of a mental breakdown, began to rock back and forth slightly. "Lucy talking to me from the TV is weirder by several orders of magnitude than anything that's ever happened to me."

"So far," Wednesday told him, desperately trying to open Shadow's mind to what was really out there. "Oh, at times the universe does seem to have singled you out for unique abuse. In these moments, you gotta ask yourself: Would I rather be ignored?"

"Yes." Shadow didn't even have to think about his answer. "Okay, yes, ignore me."

Wednesday shook his head. "Always better dead than forgotten. And no one is ever gonna forget you. Now flattering as that may be, this, on top of your other adventures...hmm. Sudden onset of strange. Fair cause for consternation, unless strange is a new language and what we're doing here is vocabulary building."

Shadow scrunched up his face as if he had just tasted something sour. "Fuck your vocabulary. Okay? This is gibberish."

"Seems you have a choice. You may have to consider that you didn't see what you saw. Or you did. The world is either crazy or you are. They're both solid options. Take your pick, and when you decide, come and tell me. But don't rush into it. Take your time. Difficult decision."

Sitting back in his seat, Shadow's eyes fell and for a few moments, he just stared at the tabletop. "They threated to reprogram reality," he recalled what the boy in the virtual limo had told him. "I mean, is...is that what this is? Are they just fucking with my head? Are you fucking with my head?"

Leaning in closer to Shadow, Wednesday lowered his voice, so as only to be heard by the patrons sitting in that very booth. "There are bigger sacrifices one might be asked to make than going a little mad." 


	6. Gambling Your Life Away

Feeling her body jolt from side to side, Brina snapped her eyes open and frowned. Waking up in the backseat of an old car was one thing, but waking up in the back seat of an old car by means of someone jostling you around like a sack of potatoes wasn't exactly a pleasant experience. "You know, a simple tap on the shoulder would suffice." Brina pulled herself up into a sitting position and groaned. 

"Wakey, wakey, Sleeping Beauty." Wednesday pushed open his door just as Shadow pulled the keys out of the ignition. "We're here."

Brina's mind was still foggy from sleep. "Where is 'here' again?"

"Chicago." 

"Oh, that's right." Brina's mood was negatively affected by the answer. "Well, let's get this over with and hopefully I can make it through without having to blow my brains out."

Shadow furrowed his brows as he and Brina exited the vehicle and watched Wednesday approach an older lady who was unlocking the door to her apartment complex. "That bad?" he didn't seem too thrilled based on Brina's mood.

"Let's just put it like this." Brina folded her arms over her chest as Wednesday waved them over. "I'd rather get into a bar fight with Sweeney and lose."

Shadow, having first-hand experience with what that was like, forced a weak smile. "Lovely."

"Zorya Vechernyaya." Wednesday greeted the woman.

Turning to look at the trio, the woman's face immediately dropped into a look of disappointment. "He don't going to be happy to see you." her Slavic accent was just as thick as ever. 

Wednesday and Brina shared a look. "When is he ever?" 

Reluctantly, Zorya let the three into her shared apartment. After removing her coat and placing her grocery bag onto the table, she put some water on to boil. "Of course you come after I do shopping." she turned to Wednesday and Brina, her tied up white hair and beautifully crafted dress with lace trimming drastically contrasting her foul mood. "Now I have to send back to store to make enough for tonight for supper. You bad news."

"I only come when matters are vital, as they are now," Wednesday explained before using his usual sleazy ways to convince someone to get on board with his plan. "God, you are gorgeous. You have not aged. And I brought you a present." he pulled out a bottle of alcohol and other various things from the bag of items he had sent Shadow to purchase. "And for your sister. And for your sister."

Picking up the bottle, Zorya wasted no time in downing the entire thing in only a few gulps. "Zorya Ultrennyaya!" she called for one of her sisters. "She is awake. Our other sister is still asleep."

Entering the kitchen, the second of the Zorya sisters came to her sister's calling. "Something to warm your bedside table." Wednesday handed the second oldest sister, this one with brown, braided hair, a couple of cheesy romance novels. 

"Our guests stay for dinner." the eldest Zorya sister turned back to the stove. "Go back to store. A roast, six potatoes, a rye loaf with seeds. No seeds, take the wheat."

Taking a seat at the table, Brina suddenly remembered the only good thing about visiting Chicago: a decent meal. "I can help." Shadow offered, obviously trying his best to be the ideal guest.

"You sit. You are guest." Zorya told him. "Coffee first."

After placing the third gift, a pair of binoculars, down in front of one of the closed doors in the hallway, Wednesday returned. "The Zorya sisters always make a marvelous home."

As the second Zorya sister left for the store without so much as a single word spoken, the eldest sister sighed. "We do okay. We pay rent on time even. We make some money from the slaughterhouse. My sister and I make a dollar here, a dollar there reading fortune. I make the most, of course."

"It's because you tell the prettiest lies." Wednesday continued to lay it on thick, hoping that flattery would get him everywhere.

"The truth is not what people want to hear." 

"Prettiest woman, prettiest lies." 

After the coffee had been handed out, Zorya looked to Shadow. "You take coffee then I read your future. You want from me. My sisters are garbage." she told him, to which he made a confused face. "You do not believe in fortunes?"

"I think that..." Shadow wracked his brain for a way to keep from offending his host. "...we're all fucked any way it comes out. You know? So...saying that before it happens is just playing the odds."

"Eh." Zorya brushed off Shadow's remark. "You go sit, be comfortable. Washroom is second door, not third. The third you do not touch. My other sister is sleeping inside. She needs her rest."

Heading toward the living room, Shadow paused briefly. "Is she sick?"

Zorya just scoffed and shrugged, and once Shadow was out of the room, she turned back to Wednesday and Brina. "He does not know our world."

Taking another sip of his coffee, Wednesday nodded. "I'm easing him in. "

"You are worst man I have ever seen." Zorya then gestured to Brina. "And you bring this girl into my home, who last time insult me."

"Hey, whoa, the last time I was here was under completely different circumstances." Brina held her hands up in defense. "And you know full well that my quarrel was with the hammer man, not you."

Zorya huffed, an audible way of sticking her nose up at the much younger woman. "You, little bird, are nothing but trouble. Both of you. Trouble."

Accepting the fact that the residents of this particular household were never going to be her biggest fans, Brina joined Wednesday on the couch and seriously considered asking if she could wait in the car. Before the woman could make her escape, however, loud coughing followed by heavy footsteps could be heard from outside the apartment. 

As soon as the door opened and shut and the beast of a man appeared in the doorway, Brina knew she was in it for the long haul. With his thick, brown corduroy jacket, blood-soaked white wife-beater, and a cigarette hanging from his lips, the man took a single sniff of the air. "That smell." his accent was just as thick as Zorya's, if not more. 

"We have guest," Zorya informed him. "We have three guests."

Looking around the small apartment, the man spotted Shadow, then Wednesday, and lastly, Brina. "Oh, Votan. Little Bird." he stalked into the living room as he plucked the half-smoked cigarette from his lips.

"Nice to see you, Czernobog, old friend." Wednesday put down the newspaper he had been perusing and stood up to greet his host. "I brought a gift." he held up a box of bullets.

"Yeah?" Czernobog put his smoke out in an ashtray before picking up the lamp beside it on the table and throwing it right at Wednesday's and Brina's head. Ducking just in time, the lamp shattering against the wall behind them, Brina let out a sigh of relief. The two were used to this sort of hostility; in fact, they expected it.

Picking up the second gift, unphased, Wednesday continued. "And some of that herb Havarti you like so much." 

"Nice to see you too." Brina dusted some of the ceramic particles from her jacket. "Glad to see you haven't forgotten me."

"Why are they in my home?" Czernobog looked to Zorya. "Make them not be here, or I'll make them not be here."

"I already invite them for dinner." Zorya shrugged, indicating there was nothing she could do about the matter. "I cannot uninvite."

Braving the waters, Wednesday stepped forward, his gifts still in hand. "I come here only to share bread and information. What you choose to do with the latter is completely up to you."

"Already he's spitting on my rug." Czernobog accused.

"Just a few moments of your time, while my man here helps the ladies prepare a delicious meal I'm sure." Wednesday persuaded. "For old times' sake."

Taking the bullets and cheese, Czernobog inspected them. "Hmm?" he eyed up Shadow. "Make dinner first."

After about an hour of sitting in silence in the living room, and in desperate need of a pick-me-up, Brina ventured into the kitchen to refill her cup with coffee, or possibly something stronger if she could find it. 

"I'd be happy to help." Shadow offered as Brina began to search the cupboards, trying her best not to be too intrusive or in the way.

Giving whatever was in the pot a stir, Zorya shook her head firmly. "I murder you first."

Shadow chuckled. "Think your husband might beat you to it."

"Oh, Czernobog is nobody's husband. I am nobody's wife. Relatives." Zorya put the wooden spoon down as she spoke. "We come over here together long time ago. Family is who you survive with when you need to survive. Even if you do not like them."

Brina snorted. "Especially if you do not like them," she muttered to herself, but apparently not quietly enough. 

Nodding along, and attempting to ease the tension in the room, Shadow gestured to the food. "Everything looks great."

"Meat will be tough, potatoes will be soft. I am not a good cook." Zorya didn't even bother trying to impress. "When I was young, there were servants to make meals. Here, there are no servants. There's only us, and learning is beneath me. 

With another chuckle, Shadow handed his empty coffee cup to the second Zorya sister who was doing dishes. Taking the cup, the sister flipped the remaining contents out onto the small saucer, observed the results, and winced. "I thought you were supposed to read tea leaves." Shadow didn't seem all that worried about possibly having a bad fortune.

"Tea is disgusting." Zorya opined as she took a turn looking at what the coffee grounds on the saucer foretold.

"So what does it say?" Shadow asked, his curiosity getting the better of him.

The two sisters whispered between themselves briefly before Zorya answered. "You will have a long life, and a happy one, with many children."

"That bad, huh?" Shadow picked up on the fact that his fortune didn't match the sisters' facial expressions. "Any good news?"

"Your mother die of cancer."

Shadow's face fell. "Yeah."

"You no die of cancer."

Brina instantly felt the need for something a lot stronger than coffee. Just then, Czernobog began yelling from the living room. As Shadow rushed in to see what was wrong, Brina stayed back a few extra seconds, anything but eager to interject herself into whatever situation was going on. 

Sensing her distress, the quieter Zorya sister reached into the cabinet beneath the sink, pulled out a bottle of vodka, and poured some into Brina's empty coffee cup. "Bless you." Brina downed the alcohol in one swig before entering the lion's den. 

"Can you get out? I want you to get out! And take your man and little bird with you. Or I will break them open and I will choke you with their hearts. I'm not going with you anywhere!" Czernobog yelled while his sisters tried to get him to lower his voice, scared he would wake up the third sister. "What's the matter? Let her wake up. Let your sister hear this con man, this son of a bitch, come into my home and try to make me die. You brought that madness into my life once. Never again."

Wednesday, like always, was simply sitting there calmly; demonstrating his talent of keeping his cool under pressure. "They'll all be there." he continued his proposition. "Everyone except you...each of them thinking they know what strong is. And if you're not there to show them otherwise...They respect you. They know you."

"No, no." Czernobog took a drag of another cigarette that he had lit. "They don't know me. You know me. You know what these hands have done. You don't want me. You want my brother, and he's not here."

"Then we'll die." Wednesday proposed as if that was some sort of grand prize. "It will be glorious, win or lose."

"I am tired of glorious." 

"I'm not successful." Wednesday turned to look at Shadow and Brina. "We should go."

Brina, who was already on her way to the door, flashed a thumbs-up. "Sounds good to me."

"You said you needed him." Shadow reminded him. 

Wednesday, who had switched to using mind games, shrugged. "There's always another way."

"No, no, no. No." Czernobog refused to let the three leave. "Food is cooked. Zorya Vechernyaya invited you for dinner, right? So you stay and you eat. Otherwise, she will be insulted. You understand? But if you want to leave after, I will hold open the door."

With nighttime falling fast and dark clouds rolling in from God know's where the table was set and the not-so-friendly group of acquaintances sat down for an evening meal together. Like Zorya had warned, the meat was tough and the potatoes were soft, but otherwise, it was one of the best meals Brina had had in a long time; which was really saying something about her own cooking abilities.

"Mmm! Delicious." Wednesday made sure to make his enjoyment verbal and loud enough for everyone to hear. "To think I nearly missed this fabulous meal, hmm? Thank you, ladies. Shadow. Brina. My old friend." he poured himself a shot of the vodka that had somehow made its way out of the cabinet and onto the table.

Leaning back in his foldable chair, Czernobog took a puff of his post-meal cigarette before letting the smoke spill from his lips. "You're black, right?" he asked Shadow, catching him off guard. 

"That a problem?" Shadow didn't even bother to look up from his plate.

"Eh, we never much care about skin, like the Americans," Czernobog replied. "Where we're from, everyone has the same colour, so we must fight over shades. You see, my brother had light hair and beard. Me dark, like you." he gestured to his receding hairline of dark gray hair and salt and pepper stubble. "I was like the black man over there. As against my brother, the white. Everybody thought he must be the good one. So I became me. But time passes. Now I'm gray. Yeah, he too, I believe, is now gray. So you wouldn't be able to tell who is light, who is dark. So much for fighting over colour."

"Yeah, you see, when we came to America, we first came to New York. Everyone first come to New York. New York was...yeah, it was alright. Sometimes even good, right? And then we came here, Chicago, everything became bad. I think in the old country, you know, I am forgotten. Here, I'm like a bad memory. So, I had to find work, and I found meat business. You know it?"

Spearing a chunk of roast with his fork, Shadow plopped the food into his mouth. "I know the eating part."

"I know the killing." Czernobog chuckled at the slightly frightened look on Shadow's face. "So I got job on killing floor as a knocker. It was a good job. Yeah, skilled labour. A cow comes up the ramp. Boom, boom, boom. And you take a sledgehammer, and...boop! You knock the cow dead. It takes strength."

"No cow-killing stories during dinner," Zorya told him, noticing the discomfort in Shadow's expression.

"How do you think meat get on your plate? Huh?" Czernobog shot back before continuing his story as if he had never been interrupted at all. "It takes strength, but not only strength. It takes talent because it's a craft. You have to do it right, or the cow gets angry. And angry meat taste bad. Yeah, you need arms to break the skull, but that's not the goal. The goal is to crush the brain inside the skull, and quick, before the pain can travel from outside the brain to the inside, so the brain never knows the brain is crushing. To give a good death is art. But nowadays, they have this bolt gun. You know? Put it on the forehead." he imitated the sound of a gun firing three times. "Now every monkey with a thumb can kill. They sit there all day, all night. Yeah, so much for killing. Hey, do you know checkers?"

Shadow, whose head nearly spun all the way around with how fast the conversation changed topics, scoffed. "I was in prison for three years."

Czernobog laughed as he took another drag of his smoke. "Yeah, people go crazy for chess. But you know what? Checkers is honest."

Shadow nodded. "Every man's an equal."

"Eh, exactly." Czernobog gave Wednesday a quick smirk before gesturing to Shadow once more. "After you finish eating, maybe you and I play checkers. I shall play black. Is good?"

"Is good." Shadow smiled. 

"Yeah." Czernobog gave an approving nod. "I like it. Confident. Maybe we even bet a little, huh?"

Pouring himself another shot, Wednesday kept his eyes locked on Czernobog. "You don't have to play him."

"What do you say?" Czernobog asked Shadow outright. 

With a sly grin, Shadow gave his answer without speaking a word. As the sisters ushered everyone away so they could clean up, Brina poured herself another glass of vodka before joining Wednesday on the couch, where the two of them watched and listened as Shadow and Czernobog challenged each other to a game of checkers.

Before Brina had even managed to take her first sip of the alcohol, Czernobog had pulled down his killing hammer from the fireplace mantel to show it off to Shadow. "It's dull now, but...the secret to keeping it clean is use." he wasn't so sneaky in his attempt to intimidate Shadow. "Yeah, blood feeds it, gives it shine. You know, the best blood flows at sunrise, when the cattle is rested, fed, and calm. Oh, now my hammer is red with rust. No more sunrise blood. Ten thousand deaths made right here. " Czernobog sat back down, resting the hammer beside himself. "Are you going to play or what? It's your move."

Leaning forward, Shadow thought long and hard about his decision before finally moving a piece. "Your move." he countered.

"Hey, we make a wager on our little game, huh?" Czernobog suggested, catching the attention of Wednesday and Brina real quick as he made his move. "You relax. This is not your game, okay?" he jabbed a finger toward the two on the couch before returning his attention to Shadow. "You see, your master wants me to come with him to deal with his nonsense. Well...listen. If I lose, I will go with Votan and do what he asks, and I will nod in front of the others."

"And if you win?" Shadow was rightly intrigued about the second outcome.

"I get to knock your brains out with my hammer," Czernobog answered, making it clear that he had known what the consequences would be before even bringing the suggestion of a competition to light. "But first, you have to go down on your knees, and I will hit you with this." he stood up once more, wielding his hammer. "Just one blow. Right here." he pressed his fingertip to the space between Shadow's eyes. "Sunrise blood. Is good?"

Wednesday, who hadn't picked his paper back up since the first mention of the wager, piped up as Czernobog returned his hammer to the mantel. "He'll take that shot...no joke, no boast, no half-measures."

"Yeah, maybe we should talk this out a little first." Brina cradled her vodka cup in her hands and rested her elbows on her knees. "How good are you?" she asked Shadow, knowing full well that Czernobog was far from an amateur player. 

Shadow's eyes never left Czernobog. "How bad do you need him?"

"It's your decision," Wednesday told him, the green highlighter he had been using to do the Wordsearch in the paper wiggling back and forth between his fingers. 

As Czernobog sat back down across from Shadow, the darker-skinned man laid his arms on top of the table and exhaled. "All right, if all this is real, and...and TVs talk, and she can read fortunes, and hammers bleed, and if there is a world...under a world...yo, fuck it. Is good."

"Is good?" Czernobog clarified.

"Yeah." Shadow had either just lost his mind for real that time or given up completely on caring whether he lived or died.

"Good." Czernobog looked down at the gameboard in front of him. "Your move." 

And just like that, the wager was on and the stakes were set about as high as they could go. No longer interested in his paper, Wednesday sat forward, his hands between his knees, as he and Brina watched with bated breath as the game continued. Every move made felt like it took ten years off of Brina's life, and no matter how much vodka she poured down her throat, her leg never stopped bouncing up and down from nerves.

When the game came down to the final few moves, Czernobog began to hum, signifying that he was confident in the fact that he had secured the win for himself. Shadow, on the other hand, became less and less indifferent to the possible outcomes as the seconds ticked by.

Eventually, Czernobog even began to sing, which truly was a sign of oncoming death if ever Brina had seen one; and she was the goddess of predicting death. 

Finally, there was no more moves for Shadow. His last remaining piece was cornered, unable to move either way without being captured. Accepting his fate, Shadow made the final move and watched in silent horror as Czernobog picked the last white piece from the board and added it to his now completed pile. 

"So at sunrise, I get to knock your brains out," Czernobog said, so nonchalantly that is was beyond disturbing. "And you will go down on your knees...willingly. Is good?" Shadow didn't respond. "A shame. You're my only black friend."


	7. Reality or Fantasy

Standing underneath the awning of the apartment complex with one leg bent and her foot pressed firmly against the brick exterior, Brina drew in a deep breath and stared out at the night sky and the many bright city lights that prevented the majority of stars from shining through. 

Ever since Wednesday had burst through the door to the museum Brina worked at — his head held high and his mind set on getting exactly what he wanted — the girl had barely had a chance alone to really think about everything. Sure, when Wednesday sat her down and explained what the plan was, it seemed reasonable enough — for Wednesday's standards, that is. But what did she really know besides that fact that there was meant to be a war?

Wednesday had a twisted, undeniable skill to make someone feel confident and informed about their decision when really, they had no idea what was going on. Wednesday only gave out explicit details when absolutely necessary. 

Standing there against the building, finally alone with her thoughts, Brina took the time to really think about what she wanted. Sure, having the good old days back sounded great, but there was something to be said about being stuck in one's ways. Over the course of history, as seen in many stories from many different countries and time periods, those that refused change usually lost the battle in the long run. 

So, as much as being the goddess she once was appealed to every bone in her body, Brina truly did have some thinking to do — as the television and radio had told her. Maybe a new and improved goddess of war could be even more powerful than ever seen before. Maybe it was time to hang up what was old and worn out and change with the times.

As the front door opened, ripping Brina from her thoughts, Wednesday and Zorya stepped out onto the sidewalk. "Where are you two going?" Brina asked as they passed her. "It's past midnight."

"Just a little stroll. Don't you mind us." Wednesday waved his hand at Brina in dismissal. "We'll be back soon, don't worry."

Puzzled, but not in the least bit concerned, Brina watched as the couple disappeared around the street corner. Minutes later, the dark clouds that had been slowly moving in all night finally opened up and a heavy downpour fell over the city of Chicago. 

Despite being dry underneath the awning, Brina decided to head back inside and try to find somewhere in the crowded apartment to catch a few hours of rest. Marching up the stairs, Brina made her way to Zorya and Czernobog's apartment and quietly let herself in, careful not to wake anyone from their slumber. Upon taking two steps into the home, however, Brina laid eyes on Shadow and Czernobog sitting across from each other in the living room once more, another game of checkers well underway.

"Shadow, do you want him to kill you twice?" Brina rushed over, but after looking at the board and noticing that Shadow was one move away from winning, she shut her mouth. 

As Shadow made the final move and collected the final black piece from the board, Czernobog slammed his hand down hard on the surface before him. "All right." he laughed as he reached for his carton of cigarettes. "I'll go with Votan to his Wisconsin. Then I'm gonna kill you. Is good?"

"Is good." Shadow accepted the terms he had agreed too, clearly relieved that he had gotten Czernobog to go through with Wednesday's plan, even if it meant dying afterward. 

Standing up, a look of exhaustion on his face, Shadow ventured off to locate somewhere to rest as a flash of lightning illuminated the night sky and the otherwise dark apartment living room. "So you still get to have your swing at him?" Brina watched as Czernobog sat back in his seat and puffed contently on his smoke. "All is well."

"All is not well." thick, gray smoke spilled from the Slavic man's mouth. "Do not think I've forgotten you, Little Bird. I remember."

"I know you remember. The lamp thrown at my head was a clear indication of that." Brina didn't even try to argue. "I just hope you also remember that during that time I was working for Wednesday, or Votan, or whatever you want to call him. I had no choice. We had a compact."

Czernobog huffed, unwilling to buy into the excuse, even though it was more of an explanation. "You come here and you sit on windowsill and give information back to your master. Do not think I don't know one of his crows when I see one."

"He's not my master. Not anymore."

"Really?" Czernobog grinned wickedly. "Then why do you follow him like lost puppy, huh? Once a crow, always a crow. You cannot fool me, Little Bird. I see you."

Brina stuffed her hands into the pocket of her jacket and shrugged. "I don't know. Maybe because I'm afraid that my crow days are over, just like you're afraid that your hammer days are over. Like it or not, he's offering us something that we can't just simply turn our backs on. We want this...some of us so much that we are willing to repeat past mistakes to get it."

══════════════════

Hearing the car doors slam shut, Brina jolted awake, thoroughly displeased with the number of times she was finding herself waking up in the back seat of Wednesday's damn car. "Thought we might find you here." Wednesday peeked into the back as he buckled up. 

"Yeah, well, there was nowhere left to sleep in the apartment, so this was better than the floor." Brina rubbed the sleep from her eyes before yawning.

"How are you feeling?" Wednesday inquired.

Brina thought for a moment. "Stiff, but otherwise good, I guess."

"Great!" the older gentleman clapped his hands together in excitement. "It's the perfect day to rob a bank."

Brina was speechless. With wide eyes, she just stared at the back of the man's head, hoping some sort of elaboration would follow. "Yeah, that's about how I reacted." Shadow settled into the passenger's seat. 

On the drive to the bank that the three of them were apparently going to rob, Brina tried her very hardest to get more information out of Wednesday, but like usual, he took great pleasure in being as vague and perplexing as possible. After three questions that got no answers, Brina gave up; all the while wondering to herself why she ever even tried in the first place.

Pulling over to the curb in front of a large building with a stone exterior and three front entrances, Wednesday parked the car. "This is the bank I'll be robbing, so let's go say hello."

"Are you outta your goddamn mind?" Shadow's mouth fell open, truly and utterly baffled. 

"My thoughts exactly!" Brina leaned over the front bench seat. "Why are we even doing this?"

Wednesday, yet again, ignored the question. "Have some faith." 

"Hell, no." Shadow refused.

"Well, how about faith in a higher power wanting me to succeed?"

Shadow looked to Brina for some backup, but all she could do was sit in silence. "Fuck, no."

"Oh, fuck, yes." Wednesday began to exit the vehicle. "You're my bodyguard, huh? That means you guard my body. Is that not right?"

As Wednesday came around to Shadow's side of the vehicle, Shadow glared at him through the half rolled down window. "Not when you're robbing a bank."

"At the moment, my body is going to the bank. It's not robbing it." Wednesday gave an exasperated wave before yanking open the passenger's side door. "Come on, learn. It'll be fun."

Looking around and noticing that the arguing was only drawing attention to them, Shadow got out of the car. "All right, look." he lowered his voice to a hushed whisper, just loud enough for Brina to hear when she stuck her head out of the back window. "We had a compact or whatever the fuck you called it. Okay? I'm not doing anything illegal."

"Oh, you're not. Well, apart from maybe a little aiding and abetting, and, of course, receiving stolen money." Wednesday looked down at Brina. "You coming?"

"You know, as tempting as that sounds, I think I'll just stay here." Brina politely declined. "You two have fun though. I'll make sure to write to you in jail when you get arrested...again." her eyes settled on Shadow. 

Shadow's face held little emotion. "Ha." he deadpanned as Wednesday pulled him away from the curb and up the steps to the bank's central entrance. 

The two were gone for maybe a grand total of thirty seconds before they came strolling out again, the look on Shadow's face a mixture of disappointment in himself and anger at Wednesday. Hopping out of the car, Brina decided she would finally join the men. 

"I am five days out of prison, you're fixing to put me back in by six." Shadow huffed as Brina jogged to catch up with them. 

"Do not bleed before you are wounded, huh?" Wednesday stopped in front of an external ATM before glancing across the street at a small cafe. "Would you like me to get you a hot chocolate?"

Brina smiled. "Would love one."

"Wasn't asking you." Wednesday clapped Shadow on the upper arm. "Yeah, come on! Let me buy you a hot cocoa."

As the three crossed the street, Wednesday pulled a pen out of his breast pocket and tossed it to Shadow. "Jot that number down." he pointed to a payphone a few meters down the sidewalk before making his way into the cafe. 

Doing as he was told without a fight, Shadow stopped in front of the phone and wrote down the number on his hand. "Is he always like this?" he asked, looking up at Brina after writing down the final four digits.

"Wednesday?" Brina chuckled. "Oh, yeah. For as long as I've known him, and I've known him a long time."

"Is he a good guy?" Shadow seemed to be genuinely asking for advice. "I mean, am I seriously fucking myself over by getting involved with him?"

Brina laughed even harder at that as Wednesday emerged from the small shop. "Oh, totally. You're fucked."

"Got you marshmallows in your cocoa." Wednesday handed over the brown paper cup. "You like marshmallows?"

Noticing there was only a single cup in Wednesday's hands, Brina frowned. "You seriously didn't get me one?" 

"That's for the turkey sandwiches." the vindictive old man retorted. 

Brina's eyes narrowed in annoyance. " _That's for the turkey sandwiches._ " she mimicked.

Taking the cup from Wednesday, Shadow sighed. "Why are you talking to me about marshmallows? Like I'm worried about marshmallows." he took a deep breath to calm down. "Yeah, I like marshmallows."

As Shadow took a sip of his hot beverage, Wednesday looked up at the gray, gloomy clouds that were hanging over the city. "What we need is snow," he noted, talking more to himself than anyone else. "Hard, driving, irritating snow. I want you to think 'snow.'" he tapped his fingers against either side of Shadow's head. "Think 'snow.'"

Shadow looked at the man as if he had finally lost his last marble. "Snow?"

"Snow. Yeah, snow. See those clouds over there to the west?" Wednesday ushered Shadow down the sidewalk, leaving Brina to trail behind them like the ultimate third-wheel. "Concentrate on making those bigger, darker. Think about dark skies and driving winds coming down from the Arctic. Think 'snow.'" 

"Okay." Shadow held his cup carefully as they began to cross the street again. "And how's this gonna help?"

"Might not do anything. But at least it will concentrate your mind." Wednesday replied truthfully as the trio got back into the car. "Snow, snow."

Once Wednesday was back in the car, leaving Brina and Shadow on the curb, Brina turned to the man and smirked. "Told you." she gibed. "Fucked."

During the next stop at a printing store where Wednesday claimed he needed to get some business cards and posters printed, Brina opted to stay in the vehicle again, slowly realizing that there was little need for her during these errands. 

One second Brina was sitting in silence, her head resting against the window, and the next, she found herself spotting little white flakes falling from the sky. Lifting her head from the window, Brina was beyond surprised to see snow coming down from the clouds above, damn near as hard as the rain had been the night before. 

Snapping her head toward the store, Brina watched as Shadow and Wednesday stepped out into the snowstorm. The look on Shadow's face was priceless, but the real question was, had he really been able to make it snow? Because if he had, there was more to Shadow Moon than Wednesday was letting on. 

══════════════════

"I love this place," Wednesday commented as he dug into the food in front of him, subsequently drawing Shadow out of his snow-induced trance. "Food's not particularly good, but the ambiance...unmissable."

Glancing around the dimly lit Chinese shop that doubled as a mediocre restaurant, Brina forced a smile. "Yeah, this is exactly what I was thinking of when I mentioned I was hungry." she poked at a sketchy looking spring roll. 

"Come on, eat up." Wednesday encouraged Shadow, who just couldn't take his eyes off of the window — or more accurately, the snow that continued to fall on the other side of the window. "Can't rob a bank on an empty stomach."

"No, I'm not hungry." Shadow declined.

"Who says you have to be hungry to eat?"

Resting his forearms on the table, Shadow leaned forward. "It wasn't supposed to snow today. It wasn't even supposed to be cold."

Wiping his face with his napkin, Wednesday sighed. "So, you're perfectly okay believing that tiny people on television can predict the weather, but you crinkle with consternation at the mere suggestion that you could make it snow."

"One of those things is science, okay?" Shadow tried to justify his dilemma. "The other is fantasy. You're talking about it like it's apples and oranges. It's not apples and oranges, okay? It's reality and fantasy."

"Oh, so that's how the world works!" Wednesday pounded his fist against the table, obviously mocking Shadow's narrow-minded viewpoint. "It's either real or it's fantasy?"

Shadow nodded, seeing no flaws with his ideology. "Yeah, that's how the world works."

"Yeah, says the man who hasn't seen it. Shadow, at best, you suffer from a failure of imagination. We're gonna have to fix that." Wednesday reached for his glass of water as the bell above the front door rang, letting everyone know another customer had entered. "Uh-oh, look what the goat dragged in."

"Cat." Shadow corrected as Brina turned to see Sweeney stalking toward them.

"Goat. Big, rank, stinking goat." Wednesday insisted. "Mad Sweeney, you look like a man who's fallen on hard times from a great height. Thought I wasn't gonna see you until Wisconsin."

Sweeney, whose clothes were disheveled and whose face was dawning many small cuts, scrapes, and bruises, shook his head. "I'll never make it to Wisconsin, not with the current state of my luck. This cunt's got my coin." Sweeney motioned toward Shadow. "Give me my coin, cunt."

Shadow furrowed his brows. "The coin you gave me?"

"Witnesses." Wednesday used his chopsticks to point to Brina and himself. "He has a point."

Pulling up a seat and wedging his way in between Shadow and Brina, Sweeney got real close and personal with Shadow. "I gave you the wrong coin. The one I gave you was my lucky coin."

"Well, you can't afford to be too careless with a lucky coin," Shadow told him matter-of-factly. "Something like that, you wanna hang on to."

Brina snorted, unable to hold herself back from making a snarky remark. "Sure doesn't sound very lucky if you were able to give it away just like that."

"Tell you what, I'll give you your lucky coin back when you tell me how you plucked it out of thin air." Shadow bargained as he and Sweeney began to dig into the food, leaving Brina the only one not eating. 

Sweeney glared a Shadow. "I plucked it outta thin air is how I plucked it outta thin air, ya bug-eatin' nonce. Now give me my coin."

"I threw it away." Shadow disclosed, bringing a joyous grin to Brina's face when she saw the look on Sweeney's. 

Stuffing a dumpling into his mouth, Sweeney drew himself closer. "Where did you throw it away?"

"Eagle Point, Indiana. So, if you want your lucky coin back, make your way to Parkview Cemetery." Shadow instructed. "There you will find my wife's grave with your coin on top."

"Oh, you fucker." Sweeney fumed, the anger almost radiating off of him. "Suppose I'll just be one more in a long line of men to climb on top of your dead wife."

Dropping his fork, Shadow's face hardened as he sat back in his chair, seconds away from starting another brawl with the tall leprechaun. "Be nice," Wednesday observed the two closely, waiting for one to make the first move.

Rising to his feet, Sweeney gave Wednesday one last parting glance. "I'll see you in Wisconsin." he then promptly headed for the exit.

"Good luck, Mad Sweeney," Wednesday called after him, to which he received a middle finger. 

Once the ginger man had left the establishment, Wednesday turned to Brina, the smile on his face so disgustingly sweet that there was no way he wasn't about to ask for a favour. "What?" Brina wasted no time cutting to the chase. 

"I want you to go with him."

"Go with him?" Brina scoffed, doing a mental double-take as she peered back at the door Sweeney had just walked out of. "Go with him and do what?"

Wednesday, annoyed that he had to explain himself, huffed. "You know I don't trust that ginger bastard as far as I can throw him. And you and I both know there is little chance of him making it to Wisconsin without that coin, let alone Eagle Point."

"Okay, let me get this straight." Brina laughed, almost sure that Wednesday was messing with her with his request. "After dragging me this far through state after state, city after city, you want me to backtrack just so I can babysit the unlucky treasure goblin?"

"I'm afraid he's a flight risk, and through you, I can have a set of eyes on him at all times."

Slowly, the realization that Wednesday was being serious began to sink in. "You know I don't work for you anymore, right? I'm here because I chose to be, not because I have to be." Brina reminded him. 

"And what a brilliant decision that was." Wednesday gestured to the door. "I have faith that you'll make another one real soon."

Clenching her jaw, Brina snatched a spring roll from the plate in front of herself before standing up. "Fuck you for always putting me in these situations." she grabbed her jacket from the back of her chair and frustratedly put it on. "I swear if I find out this was just another one of your bullshit excuses to get me out of the way, I will steal that lucky fucking coin and drag myself all the way to Wisconsin just to shove it down your fucking throat."

"You're a doll." Wednesday waved goodbye. "I always knew I could count on you."

"Yeah, whatever." Brina rolled her eyes before looking down at Shadow. "Whatever you do, don't let him ruin you. He will destroy everything you are with a smile on his face just to get his way." 

With that warning, Brina shoved the spring roll into her mouth and took off after Sweeney. Luckily, the man was so tall and stuck out so much from the general population that with a quick sweep of the surrounding area she was able to track him down.

Approaching the leprechaun as he peered through the window of a parked car in an empty alleyway, Brina tucked her hands away in her pockets and waited for the man to notice her, which he never did. "What are you doing?" she asked.

Startled, Sweeney jumped back. "What the fuck do you want?" his body relaxed when he realized it was only Wednesday's reluctant companion. 

"I'm coming with you," Brina told him instead of asking permission because she knew if she asked first, the answer would most definitely be no. 

"The hell you are."

"Listen, I don't like it any more than you do. If you have any complaints, take it up with Wednesday. He's the one who doesn't trust you."

Sweeney chortled as he towered over the woman. "Wednesday still got you runnin' around like his little bitch?"

"You know, I feel like a broken record with how many times I have to say this, but no, I'm not working for him anymore." Brina insisted, even though lately, she wasn't sure if she even really believed it herself. 

"If you say so."

"I do."

Too emotionally and physically drained to bicker back and forth anymore, Sweeney gave in. "You're really not gonna leave me alone, are you?"

"It's not looking like it." Brina started further down the alley in the direction of the next main street. "Now, come on. If we're hoping to make it all the way back to Eagle Point, we're gonna want something a little better than that rust-bucket on wheels."

"Whatever you say, Little Bitch."

With her back turned to Sweeney as she walked in front of him, Brina just smirked at the new moniker. "You know, I think I preferred 'She-Devil.'"


	8. The Unlucky Luck of the Irish

Watching Sweeney stumble up the slight hill toward herself and Laura Moon's grave was an exhausting and infuriating sum up of how the entire drive back to Eagle Point had been. With the down-on-his-luck leprechaun either sleeping or complaining the entire two and a half hour trip from Chicago to where they were now, Brina was beyond ready to dig up that stupid chunk of gold, ditch Sweeney's annoying ass as soon as possible, and make her way back to Wednesday and Shadow before they inevitably moved on to the next leg on their journey — that is, if they actually managed to rob a bank without being arrested.

"For a guy with such long legs, you sure do move slow as hell." Brina held the shovel and pickaxe that they had purchased at a local hardware store in her hands and impatiently tapped her foot against the ground. "Hurry it up, you lanky fuck. I haven't got all night here."

Shining his flashlight on the grave marker that confirmed the burial site did indeed belong to Shadow's wife, Sweeney glared at the shorter woman. "Just shut your fuckin' trap and hold this, will you?" he handed over the light before taking the pickaxe and making his first swing into the dirt. 

"Jesus, be careful." Brina shone the light so Sweeney could see what he was doing. "God forbid you swing too hard and pierce right through the casket and bury your pickaxe into the poor dead woman's head."

"She's dead. What does she care?" Sweeney retorted as he switched from the pickaxe to the shovel and began to dig. "You know, you could help instead of standin' there like a fuckin' mannequin."

Wiggling the flashlight in her hands, Brina flashed a forced smile. "I'm holding the light, dumbass. Plus, it's your fucking coin, not mine."

Removing his jean jacket and western-styled long sleeve and discarding them on the grass, Sweeney pulled his suspenders down his arms and really started to get into the task at hand. "Such a foul mouth for such a pretty lass," he commented, making pretty decent headway with his digging in the process. "It's a shame, really."

"What can I say? You bring out the worst in me."

Sweeney snorted. "You're not the first lass to tell me that, and you probably won't be the last."

Eventually, after another twenty or so minutes of digging — approximately a meter down into the dirt — Sweeney uncovered the casket. On the top of the white lid was a perfectly round, coin-shaped hole that went through the entire thickness of the material. 

Stepping closer to the edge of the rectangular hole in the ground, Brina shone the flashlight down into what was supposed to be the final resting place of Laura Moon. However, there was no body laying on top of the white satin. 

"That's not good." Brina let her hand drop to her side and shut off the flashlight. "Does this mean what I think it means?"

His eyes full of anger, Sweeney jumped out of the grave, grabbed his clothes, and started marching back toward the parking lot. "Dead wife's got my fuckin' coin!" 

Letting her head fall back out of disbelief and irritation, Brina stared up at the night sky and took a moment to compose herself. "Why couldn't it just have been easy?" she asked no one in particular, more or less just wanting to get the question out into the universe. "Just...why?"

Spinning around, his body almost completely hidden by the shadows due to how far away he had gotten, Sweeney waved for the woman to follow him. "Are you comin' or not?!"

Picking up the pickaxe that the leprechaun had so nicely left for her to carry, Brina began catching up to the irate man waiting for her. "Yeah, yeah. I'm coming. Don't get your panties in a twist."

Once back at the vehicle, Sweeney took it upon himself to squeeze his large frame into the tight driver's seat. Brina wasn't complaining though, because for the entire duration of the previous trip he hadn't offered to drive once. Just barely having slid into the passenger's seat and closed the door behind her, Brina grabbed the door handle for stabilization as Sweeney raced out of the parking lot like he was in a drag race or something.

"Okay, wherever you are taking me, can we please try to get there in one piece?" Brina quickly buckled herself in. "Which introduces the question, where exactly _are_ we going? Is the plan just to drive all over the country until we find Shadow's wife and hopefully your precious little coin as well?" 

"I'm followin' my gut." Sweeney's hands gripped the steering wheel tight. "I can feel it in my bones."

"Oh, okay, following your gut." Brina had no other option but to accept the deranged man's logic and just go with the flow. "You sure that feeling isn't just that Chinese food you ate? Because that place definitely hasn't passed any health-code inspections in the last decade." 

Tired of Brina's constant remarks, Sweeney turned on the radio and blasted the volume so high that any conversation was pretty much impossible. Unwilling to engage in an argument at that moment, Brina turned her body toward the window, leaned back, and let her mind completely shut off for a little while.

The passing scenery certainly was a good distraction...for about ten minutes. Furrowing her brows at a sudden realization, Brina shut the radio off again and narrowed her eyes at Sweeney. "Hold on, if your gut feeling is so trustworthy, how come it didn't tell you that the coin wasn't even in the cemetery to begin with?" she posed the question that had her boggled. "How come you didn't feel _that_ in your bones, huh?" she jabbed a finger into Sweeney's bicep.

"Oh, that's it!" Sweeney pulled the car over to the side of the road and unlocked the doors. "Just get out! If I have to listen to your incessant whinin' for a second longer I am going to drive into oncoming traffic."

"Tempting." Brina re-locked the door manually. "Stop being a blubbering baby and just drive the damn car. It was an honest question." Without another word, Sweeney pulled back onto the road and continued in the direction that his 'gut' was telling him to go. " _...an honest question that you apparently are unable to answer..._ " Brina muttered under her breath.

Clenching his hands even tighter around the wheel, Sweeney growled. "I'm warnin' you."

"Shutting up now." Brina held her hands up in surrender. "Please, let's find your coin so we can part ways as soon as possible before we end up killing each other."

"Agreed."

"Good."

"Good."

══════════════════

"This is it." Sweeney pulled into the parking lot of the Starbrite Motel, located somewhere about an hour outside of Eagle Point. The motel had two levels with Christmas lights hanging from the second story walkway and a neon blue sign out front. 

Leaning forward, Brina eyed the place up as a feeling of her own began to twist its way around in her stomach. "This is it?" she cocked a quizzical eyebrow. "Are you sure?"

"Yes. I'm sure."

As Sweeney pulled the keys out of the ignition and began to climb out of the vehicle, Brina grabbed him by the arm to stop him. "I don't know about this," she confessed, slightly embarrassed by her sudden cowardice. "Something feels...off." 

"Somethin' feels off?" Sweeney repeated. "Is that your professional opinion?"

"I'm serious. I don't think this is a good idea."

"Well, no offense, but fuck your feeling." Sweeney yanked his arm free and stepped out onto the pavement, pausing for a few seconds before slamming the door shut. "Actually, yes, please take as much offense as possible."

Following Sweeney out into the parking lot, Brina walked behind him silently as he moved from door to door before stopping in front of one. "Here." he squared up and kicked the door in without so much as a warning.

Storming into the room, the collar on his jean jacket popped in an attempt to make himself look more threatening, Sweeney laid eyes on a brunette woman about the same stature but a little shorter than Brina. "You're the wife." he stared her down. "You're the dead wife. Give me my fucking coin, dead wife."

Turning around to face the two intruders, the woman who at that point was assumed to be Laura Moon, didn't say a word. She certainly didn't look dead — well, besides the fact that her right arm had clearly been sewn back on recently.

Lurching forward, Sweeney grabbed Laura by the jaw, forcing her to open her mouth. A warm golden glow emanated from her throat, indicating that Sweeney's coin wasn't just with her, it was inside of her.

As her face soured with displeasure, Laura reached up and flicked Sweeney in the throat, the action somehow possessing so much power that it sent him flying into the wall and crashing to the ground. Looking from Sweeney to Laura, Brina smiled sweetly, desperately hoping that she wasn't going to be the next to get flicked. "Hi." she greeted.

"Hi," Laura responded before crouching down in front of Sweeney. "You mean my fucking coin."

Standing to the side, Brina decided she would let Sweeney handle the situation. After all, he already seemed to be doing brilliantly, and she would be lying if she didn't get some joy out of watching the tall son of a bitch suffer a little. 

With his legs wiggling and his arms holding himself up, Sweeney gasped for breath in the aftermath of the forceful blow to his jugular. "The dead can't own things." he panted. "That's why God made last wills and testaments. Don't imagine yours includes my lucky coin."

In another attempt to take back what was his, Sweeney reached forward, only to have his hand thrown back against the wall. "My lucky coin, Ginger Minge." Laura told him as she stood back up. "My husband gave that coin to me."

"Damn his dark eyes." Sweeney cradled his injured hand in his other one. "Gave it a-fucking-way. Wasn't his to give! I gave him the wrong coin. Wasn't meant to be that coin. That's for royalty, see? That's a coin you give to the King of America himself, not some piss-ant bastard like your piece-of-shit husband. Just give me my fucking coin back!"

Sitting down on the edge of the motel bed, Laura looked up at Sweeney as she started to pull her boots on. "No."

Standing up, Sweeney looked to Brina for backup, but the woman only shrugged. "No, keep going." she encouraged. "You're doing great."

"You'll never see me again if you do." Sweeney changed tactics to what was teetering on the edge of begging. "I swear to fucking Bran, okay? I swear by the years I spent in the fucking trees. Give me my coin, cunt!"

Sweeney jabbed his finger into Laura's face, and with one quick motion, Laura grabbed the digit and snapped it upwards. The scream that followed after was one that rivaled any scream from any horror movie Brina had ever seen. As Sweeney collapsed to the ground in pain, Laura looked up at Brina. "Is he always such a slow learner?"

"Yeah, he's got a thick skull," Brina answered as she and Laura stood over the whimpering mess of a man on the carpet. "He's persistent though, gotta give him that." 

"I guess so." Laura stepped on Sweeney's fingers with her boot. "I'm going to ask you some questions, and I'd like for you to answer me honestly. However, if I feel like you're not being honest, I'm going to kick you in the nuts. And I want you to know that the last time I kicked a guy in the nuts, my foot didn't stop until it reached his throat. Okay?"

Breathing hard and trying not to cry out in agony, Sweeney gave a nod. "This should be fun." Brina let Laura do her thing. 

"How do you know my husband?" Laura asked the first question.

"I was told to be at a bar, pick a fight with your man." the answer came flying out of Sweeney's mouth at the speed of light. "Said he wanted to see what your man was made of. "

Bearing more weight on the foot that was crushing Sweeney's hand, Laura prodded for more details. "Who said? Use your words."

"Grimnir!" Sweeney used one of Wednesday's given names. "The dude he calls Wednesday."

Lifting her foot, Laura let Sweeney finally take his hand back. Yanking his appendage closer to his body for protection, Sweeney crawled away until his back was pressing against the armchair in the room. "He's a god." Sweeney elaborated, earning a confused look from Laura, which was to be expected. "You don't believe me?"

"No, no. Just processing." Laura told him. "Um, what else did God tell you to do?

"You shouldn't trust him - Grimnir." 

"Wednesday?" Laura confirmed.

Sweeney nodded. "Don't trust him."

"Don't have to trust him." 

"Your man does, and he shouldn't."

"It's true." Brina piped up, decided to throw in her two-cents. "Wednesday's a manipulative man. We've experienced it first hand. Shadow could get into some deep shit working for him."

As Laura thought some more about all the new information she was gaining, Sweeney had another burst of bravery — or more accurately, stupidity. "Listen, just give me my fucking coin back, yeah? Hey. There's more where that came from. I'll give you another." Sweeney plucked another coin from the air. "Just as good." he then pulled out a flat cap from his pocket and began to fill it with coins. "Hell. I'll give you a shitload."

"Just as good?" Laura sized up the coins cautiously. "Hmm. I don't really feel like any of those coins are going to do the job that my coin's doing." Defeated, Sweeney placed the cap onto his head and exhaled. "You can't take it, can you?" Laura began to catch on. "I have to give it to you freely, right?"

Sweeney's mouth stretched into a flat line. "Right." 

"Well, you're fucked." Laura laughed. "I'm not going to give it to you. Come on. I don't think you're ever going to get your coin back. Never ever ever. Not ever."

Bending down in front of Sweeney, Brina grabbed his jaw with her small hand and scowled. "She has to give it to you? Is there a reason you didn't bother mentioning that sooner?!"

"Calm down, woman." Sweeney pushed Brina away before turning back to Laura. "Not not ever. Meat's going to slide off you sooner or later, dead wife. Sooner if you keep soaking it in hot water." he gestured to the full bathtub that sat in the middle of the room and picked up on the fact that the ends of her hair were still damp. "All that connective tissue holding you together. Well, that's gonna liquefy. You'll find yourself on a hot, humid summer day just cooking in that moist heat. And you're going to fall right off the bone. When you do, I'm going to reach up under those ribs, and I'm going to pluck that coin out of you like a berry."

There was a moment of silence after Sweeney's speech, and just when it felt like maybe things had settled down, the leprechaun pounced on Laura, picking her up and throwing her into the bathtub. With his hands around her throat, Sweeney held the woman underwater. Brina wasn't sure what Sweeney's plan was since she was pretty sure it was impossible to kill someone who was already technically dead, but whatever it was, it was clearly fueled by rage and idiocy.

"Stop it!" Brina shouted, trying to get Sweeney to let go of Laura. The man was in a blind-rage, however, and there was no reasoning with him. Reaching under the water as well, Brina attempted to pry the large man's hands off of Laura's throat. "Let her go!"

That's when the police stormed in, having obviously been called due to all the shouting and cries of pain that had been coming from the motel room. When the first officer set eyes on the scene, it must have looked pretty cut and paste; one male and one female were holding another female under the water, effectively trying to drown her. 

"Freeze! Hands up!" the police officers rushed over, pulling the two suspected assailants away from the tub. 

"She ain't dead." Sweeney blurted out as he backed away and held his hands up. "She ain't dead. See?"

To all appearances, however, Laura looked very much dead, what with the way she was laying still under the water with her eyes wide open. "Oh, you're an asshole," Sweeney told her as the police began to handcuff him. "You're a fucking asshole, dead wife!"

When an officer approached her, Brina took a step back. "No, no, I was trying to stop him!" she pleaded her case. "I was trying to pull his hands off!"

"Yeah, tell it to the judge." the officer cuffed Brina's hands behind her back before the squad dragged her and Sweeney out of the motel room and stuffed them into the back of one of their police cruisers.

Sitting in the back of the police car with Sweeney, the handcuffs pinching her wrists and the water from the bathtub beginning to seep deeper into her clothing, Brina gritted her teeth. "Hey, remember when I said going into that room was going to be a bad idea?" Brina wanted nothing more than to loop her cuffed hands around Sweeney's neck and strangle him with the chain. "Yeah, I fucking told you so." 


	9. Three's a Crowd, Four's a Riot

"Dispatch control. This is Cassius PD 6651. Radio check." the officer spoke into his radio after pulling up in front of the police station. There was no response from the other line and upon a closer glance, it looked as if there weren't even any lights on in the station; it looked completely abandoned. 

Adjusting her position in an attempt to get more comfortable, Brina shoved Sweeney with her shoulder so he would move over and give her more room in the cramped back seat. "I cannot believe you got me arrested," she muttered under her breath. "This is what I get for working with Wednesday again and agreeing to babysit your dumb ass. I try to do my part and help out where help is needed, and what do I get to show for it? I get arrested, that's what I get." 

"Will you shut your mouth?" Sweeney snapped. 

The driver tried a few more times to get in contact with his colleagues, but when the radio remained silent and there continued to be no sign of life inside of the station, the two officers exited the vehicle, weapons ready, and headed into the building, leaving Brina and Sweeney alone in the cruiser.

With bated breath, the two suspected murderers watched as the officers disappeared into the building. For a few seconds, all seemed well, but then three quick gunshots went off. Eyes wide, Brina waited for something else to happen, but nothing else did. "I think we should go." she turned to look at Sweeney. "And this time, it's not a suggestion, it's an order."

"I'm inclined to agree with you." Sweeney leaned back into Brina's lap and began kicking at the window. After four hard stomps, the window shattered onto the pavement. 

"Good job." Brina waited for Sweeney to climb out before she did. "Just be careful when you go to-" she tried to warn him, but before she could even finish her sentence, Sweeney's foot slipped and he fell down hard, one leg on the outside of the car and the other on the inside, effectively crushing his balls. 

Whimpering in pain, Sweeney tilted the rest of the way out of the cruiser and fell onto the ground, his face contorted with pure agony. "Are you okay?" Brina called as she followed suit, managing to make her escape a little more graceful and a lot less painful. 

"Yeah. I'm okay." he wheezed as he struggled to stand back up again. "Let's just go before they come back out again."

"I don't think they're coming back out again." Brina glanced back at the station, the darkness and eerie silence giving it major horror vibes. "But that's a good idea. Let's go."

Darting into the shadows, the two escapees made a mad dash for it. With their breathing heavy and footsteps loud, they ran as fast as they could for as far as they could before coming to a stop at the nearest road, which was the dirt road that the cops had driven down to get them from the motel to the police station. 

Bending over, Brina gulped in air as fast as she could, her chest heaving. Once she had caught her breath, the woman began to laugh uncontrollably. "What is so goddamn funny?" Sweeney eyed her suspiciously, half-convinced she had lost her mind.

"We look deranged." Brina cackled, referring to the fact that they were running around in the dead of night with crazed looks on their faces and their hands cuffed behind their backs. "Look at us. I mean, come on, it's kind of funny."

Sweeney cracked a smile. "Ten minutes ago you were about ready to kill me."

"Oh, that's still a valid possibility. But right now, laughing about the situation instead of being pissed about it is saving my sanity from flying out the fucking window." Brina looked both ways down the road before starting back in the direction of the motel. "Now keep up, Ginger Minge." she used the moniker Laura had given him. "We have some walking to do."

Side by side, the unlikely duo hiked down the pitch-black road, a lone car passing by every once in a while but paying them absolutely no attention; in fact, in most cases, the drivers would speed up when passing them, which in all fairness, was probably a smart idea on their parts.

After roughly about forty minutes or so of walking in complete silence, the bright blue neon lights of the motel sign could be seen in the distance. "Oh, thank God." Brina sighed in relief as she wiggled her hands in the cuffs for about the twentieth time that evening. "Fuck, these cuffs are so tight."

"Mine don't exactly feel like silk." Sweeney dragged his feet along the dirt, shooting up puffs of dust around his boots with every step. 

Arriving back at the motel brought a short-lived sense of accomplishment before the realization dawned on the duo that their car had been towed, they didn't have any money to pay for a room, and their hands were still tightly cuffed. 

"Oh, look." Brina nodded her head toward the motel office where a brunette woman stood at the desk. "Dead wife is still here."

"Fuckin' dead wife." Sweeney began to storm toward the office, somehow not having learned his lesson from the last time he tried to go against Laura Moon. 

With her elbows planted on the top of the counter, Laura glared at the man behind the desk. "Where are the police?" she questioned angrily. "Isn't this a crime scene? Shouldn't they be all over this?"

"The police are dead. First piece of luck I've had in days." Sweeney spoke up, catching Laura's attention and getting her to turn around to face him. "Hi."

"The police are dead?" Laura looked to Brina for answers. "All of them? All of the police are dead?"

Brina shrugged slightly, unsure of how to answer that honestly. "Let's just say that there are worse things roaming the streets tonight than you or us."

Rolling her eyes hard, Laura groaned. "Do you have a car?"

"Yes." Sweeney lied. "We do."

"Well, chop-chop, Ginger Minge, let's go." Laura led the way back out into the parking lot. "And what about you?" she laid eyes on Brina. "You don't seem nearly as insufferable as your...friend? Who are you exactly?"

Brina shook her head. "Oh, no, definitely not friend." she made it clear right off the bat that she in no way wanted to be associated with the bastard of a leprechaun she had had the misfortune of being stuck with. "I'm Brina."

"And you said you've had experience with this Mr. Wednesday guy, right?" 

"Yeah, something like that. I was with him and Shadow for a while before this."

"Okay, good to know." Laura started to scan the vehicles in the lot. "So, which one's yours?"

Sweeney examined the options. "Pick one."

"Oh, for fuck's sake. That one." Laura pointed to a normal looking silver car before reaching behind Brina's back and pulling her cuffs apart with minimal effort; Sweeney's coin not only giving her life but also outstanding strength. 

"Thank you." Brina's arms relaxed as soon as they weren't forced behind her back anymore. Even though the cuffs were still pinching her wrists, she could at least use her hands again, which was a relief. 

Eyeing up Sweeney, Laura grimaced. "Do I have to uncuff him too?"

"As much as I would love to keep him like that, he's the one with the expert knowledge of hotwiring cars, not me," Brina confessed. "Sadly, without him, we have nothing." 

Reluctantly, Laura snapped the chain on Sweeney's cuffs, granting him the ability to use his hands once again as well. "Get it started. I'll take it from there."

"Well, you're not taking it anywhere, dead wife, not without me, not until that coin is back in my pocket where it belongs." Sweeney began to approach a yellow taxi as he pulled a miniature crowbar out from who knows where. His pocket? Maybe he plucked it out of thin air just like his coins? 

"Good fucking luck with that." Laura scoffed before pointing to the silver car again. "No, this one, not that one."

Stopping in front of the taxi's hood, Sweeney shook his head. "That alarm I can't do anything about. This alarm I can. This alarm's my friend." he used the crowbar to pry open the hood so he could pull out a single wire that connected the car alarm.

"Well, then steal me a different fucking car." Laura began to search for a better-looking vehicle. "I don't want to drive this shitty old taxi."

"I'm driving. You're in the back." Sweeney told her. 

Peering through the window into the back seat of the taxi, Laura's face flushed with disgust. "This car's a toilet."

"It's your toilet now, dead wife." Sweeney jimmied the lock so he could open the driver's side door. "I've done the math. This times that equals you're a cunt, divided by the only way I'm going to get what I need is if you give it to me, equals the only way you're going to give it to me is if you don't need it. Like my friend Jesus Christ, the only thing you need, dead wife...is resurrection." 

"Seriously, I have to know." Laura turned to face Brina. "Why are you with this fucking knobhead?"

Folding her arms across her chest, Brina just sighed. "It's all part of a bigger picture. Plus, I'm doing someone a favour. It's complicated." 

"Oh." Laura nodded before returning her attention to Sweeney. "Also, did you just name drop Jesus Christ like you know a guy who knows a guy?"

"I do know a guy who knows a guy, and the guy sitting next to that guy is your guy." Sweeney bent down and reached under the steering wheel so he could hotwire the filthy cab. 

Tucking a strand of hair behind her ear, Laura moved closer so she could watch the tall ginger man work. "And who's this guy your guy knows?"

"Someone who can perform a resurrection without the use of a charmed coin." 

"And you're just gonna convince this guy to bring me back to life?"

"I can be very convincing." Sweeney fiddled with a few wires, electrocuting himself in the process. "Fuck." he cursed as he tried to shake the pain out of his fingers. 

Laura scoffed. "Is this you being convincing now? Because you suck at it, unless you're trying to convince me you're an asshole."

"He doesn't need much convincing for that." Brina leaned back against the yellow exterior of the taxi and chuckled to herself. "He exudes asshole." 

"I'm trying to convince you to live." Sweeney finally managed to get the car working properly. "Real living, not whatever rot living this is. 'Cause whatever this is doesn't last long, especially through a hot summer. Whatever this is goes to soup, and soup don't win her husband back, if that's what soup is after." he gestured to Laura's body as he spoke before lowering the hood back down again. "Why don't you put that on your fucking scales and weigh it?"

Fed up with Sweeney's constant insults and useless blabbering, Laura marched over to him and slammed her hands down onto the hood. "What the fuck are you?" Laura's question was more of a demand. "I mean, what the fuck are any of you? But first, tell me what the fuck are you. Seriously, what the fuck are you?"

"I'm a leprechaun." Sweeney offered up the information willingly. "And my She-Devil of a tag-along is a god of sorts."

"Oh, well, that makes sense." Laura's eyes darted between Sweeney and Brina. 

Sweeney huffed. "Does it now?"

"No!"

Before the heated conversation could go any further, the sound of a gun cocking interrupted the trio. Instinctively, Sweeney rose his hands and backed away from the vehicle while the two women froze in place. Pointing his pistol right at the three thieves, a young Muslim man wearing a knit sweater cleared his throat. "Please stop stealing my cab," he asked pretty nicely for someone who had just found three strangers breaking into his property. "Did you say you are a leprechaun?"

Panicking, Sweeney jabbed a finger toward Brina. "She's the goddess. On the spectrum of importance, she ranks way higher than I do. Take her, not me."

"Oh, thank you for that, you spineless prick." Brina looked to the man with the gun pointed in her direction. "Yes, he's a leprechaun."

"Have you ever met a jinn?" he inquired, somehow knowing a lot about the world of immortal beings for someone who seemed so plain and unassuming. 

Turning on his heel, his hands still above his head, Sweeney smirked. "Looking for a jinn, are you now?"

"I have been traveling in the direction of Mecca for days looking for a jinn." 

"Fire for eyes, shit for brains?" Sweeney clarified.

"Yes." the man nodded as he lowered his weapon. "And no, presumably."

Finally feeling safe enough to drop his hands, Sweeney turned to look at the two women. "My luck's for shit. I'd rather not be behind the wheel."

"Well, either one of us can drive." Brina reminded him that both she and Laura were perfectly capable human beings. 

"Yeah, you'll drive." Sweeney scoffed. "You'll drive into a fucking tree first chance you get. Either one of you." he turned to the taxi's owner. "Take us to Kentucky. I'll tell you where to find your jinn. I'll tell you where to find a whole murder of gods, demi and otherwise, every goddamn one of them. I'll tell you. Once we're in Kentucky." 

As the group of four began to pile into the cab, Brina in the back with Sweeney, the exhausted woman turned to the leprechaun and exhaled loudly. "Are you really dragging me to Kentucky just so you can get this stupid little coin back?"

"Every day I wander this God-forsaken planet without that coin in my possession, I get closer and closer to a brutal and untimely death." Sweeney clarified the situation for Brina. "And might I remind you, there is nothing physically tying you to me. You are free to go whenever you want."

"I can't." Brina hated that she was willingly putting herself through hell for someone she thoroughly disliked. "I hate it, but I said I would, and I'm a woman of her word."

Pulling his cap out and pulling it down over his eyes, Sweeney chuckled. "I've said it before and I'll say it again. For someone who claims to not be working for Wednesday, you sure are acting like his bitch."

"I know." Brina didn't even try to deny it that time, because honestly, she knew it was true and she was just so tired of lying to herself about it. Brina had no idea why she was actively acting like Wednesday's little errand girl, but the one thing she did know was that something inside of her told her that — no matter how bad the company or how grueling the task — she just couldn't leave. 

For one reason or another, Brina had to ride this out until the end, even if the end was finding someone to resurrect Laura so Sweeney could finally get his goddamn lucky coin back. 


	10. My Afterlife

It was early morning, the sun only just past the horizon, bringing a warm orange and yellow glow to the sky. Brina wasn't exactly sure how long the four of them had been driving — the majority of the trip thus far taking place on one single road that led the ragtag group of travelers and their beaten up yellow taxi through rural communities and open fields — but they sure were making headway. 

Sweeney was fast asleep, had been for a while, and Brina was sort of drifting in and out of complete awareness, her mind sometimes wandering off as she watched the scenery pass by. In the front seat, however, a quiet conversation between the taxi driver and Laura had started up.

"New York scared me," the driver told the tale of his experience coming to America. "I was scared of the black people, the way they stared at me. I was scared of the Jews, the ones dressed all in black with the hats and the beards and the side curls. I was scared of the sheer quantity of people, all shapes and sizes of people spilling from high, high filthy buildings onto the sidewalk. I was scared of the honking hullabaloo of traffic, and I was even scared of the air. Now, I'm not scared of anything anymore."

"I'm scared you're never gonna shut that flappin' hole of yours." Sweeney knocked the brim of his cap up so his eyes were visible again. "I'm sitting back here having a fuckin' anxiety attack because I am genuinely terrified that you are never gonna shut the fuck up, Ibrahim bin Irem." he sat forward and inspected the taxi license that was attached to the back of the driver's seat; the picture on the license clearly of a different man. "Who the fuck is Ibrahim bin Irem anyway? 'Cause that ain't you. Ibrahim probably threw himself from this speeding vehicle to shut your fuckin' yap."

Pulling her sunglasses out of her pocket and slipping them onto her face to protect her eyes from the blinding morning rays, Brina sighed. "If you don't shut _your_ fucking yap I'm going to throw _you_ from this speeding vehicle."

"I'd like to see you try." Sweeney almost dared.

"With your luck right now, I don't think I'd have much of a problem." 

Turning around to peer into the back seat, Laura flashed a glare similar to one a fed-up mother would give her bickering children on a long road trip. Once the two had stopped talking altogether, Laura turned back to the fourth addition of the group. "Did you kill Ibrahim?" she asked. "I won't tell. You should see the shit I've done. Did you?"

"No." he shook his head. "I never met Ibrahim bin Irem. I imagine he was given a new life just as I was. My name is Salim...or it was Salim. I do not know what my name is now."

Sweeney and Brina shared a confused look, but in fear of annoying Laura again — as they had witnessed what she could do first hand — they kept their mouths shut. "So you got this new life, what happens to the old one?" Laura followed up with another question. "Fuck those assholes? Never see 'em again?"

"Yes. Fuck those assholes." Salim found comfort in that ideology. 

Laura smirked. "Yeah, that's the spirit. Fuck those assholes." her smile slowly faded as her face washed over with a hint of sorrow. "I just realized that I'm never gonna see my mother again. Never gonna hear her say my name again. Never gonna eat her cooking again. Thank fuckin' Christ for that. That is not me taking the lord's name in vain. I will actually be thanking Christ when his Resurrection Guy who'do's that voodoo."

Lurching forward, Sweeney stuck his head through the hole in the plastic barrier that separated the front and back seats. "You shut the fuck up about that. It's not for public consumption."

Taking his eyes off the road for a split-second, Salim glanced at Laura. "You are not a leprechaun?"

"Oh, she's a lepre-cunt." Sweeney jabbed.

Reaching back through the plastic hole, Laura grabbed Sweeney hard by the bottom lip. "If I hear that word pass your lips one more time, I'm gonna peel them off your gums."

"Oh! Fuckin' hell!" Sweeney gasped when Laura let go of her grip on him. 

"There, there." Brina patted Sweeney chastely on the head. "Shake it off, cupcake." 

Adjusting her body in her seat, Laura fished a pack of cigarettes from her pocket. "You mind if I smoke in here?"

"I would rather you not," Salim answered.

Pulling out a single smoke, Laura scoffed. "You're really gonna be precious? Because it smells like someone took a shit in the back seat."

"Someone did take a shit in the back seat," Salim informed her nonchalantly, causing Brina and Sweeney to stare down at the seat they were sitting on in disgust. "If you must smoke, roll down your window. 

Doing as requested, Laura pulled a box of matches out as well before striking one and passing the flame across the end of her cigarette. After the first inhale, the smoke spilled slowly from her lips and her face relaxed, almost as if she was contemplating how the nicotine made her feel. All the while, flys began to enter the car and buzz around her rotting body. 

"Are you dead?" Salim asked outright. "You smell dead. Although, um, that might be the cigarette."

"This is my afterlife, Salim/Not Salim." Laura held the cigarette out the window and tapped loose the ashes. 

Unphased by Laura's reply, Salim nodded. "Did you pray for another life?"

"Oh, yeah. All the time when I was little." Laura took another drag of her smoke before continuing. "At Sunday school we were forced to pray. I told my priest that I didn't know how. And he told me to pray for my family, so I used to pray that they'd disappear...or that there'd be an accident."

"There was an accident all right," Sweeney muttered.

Ignoring the cranky leprechaun in the back, Laura kept her eyes focused on the road ahead. "And now finally my prayers have been answered."

"I do not pray to ask God for things." Salim shared his religious practices. "I pray to thank God for bringing me where I am. To this time, to this place, where I finally know what I must do in this life. I pray I find the jinn. He is my afterlife. I knew him. We knew each other. Now I want to know more."

The corners of Brina's mouth curled upwards. "That's cute." she felt her heart flutter for a nanosecond, the feeling a combination of joy and sadness. "That sort of connection with someone, it's rare. Whatever you do, don't let it go."

Looking back through the rearview mirror, Salim made eye contact with Brina. "Have you ever felt this way about someone?" he queried, his dark irises somehow seeing right through her and picking out the secrets she was so desperately trying to hide. 

"Once." Brina decided to be truthful. "A very long time ago."

"What happened?"

Turning her head, Brina focused on a lone tree that stood tall in the middle of a grassy field. "What always happens." she didn't dare go too much into detail. "Life is cruel and happiness is fleeting, and there's nothing you can do about it."

Chuckling, Sweeney slouched in his seat once more, ready to fall back asleep yet again. "Oh, boo-hoo. I bet it was a tragedy of the ages, wasn't it?"

"Yes." Brina turned her body toward the car door and wrapped her arms around herself, the memories making her feel cold and dead inside. "It was for me."

══════════════════

When Salim pulled up and parked the cab in front of Jack's Crocodile Bar, Brina was surprised to find a spark of comfort rush through her bones at the sight of the old wooden building. Traveling all over the country, never stopping at the same place twice was certainly a well-concocted recipe for an overwhelming sense of estrangement. So, despite the many downfalls of the establishment, Brina was actually excited as she made her way up to the front door of the bar.

Brina wasn't exactly sure what the four of them were doing at the bar, but the one thing that was for sure, however, was the fact that the bar certainly wasn't on the way to Kentucky. What Brina and Sweeney didn't know was that while they had been otherwise occupied — Brina tuned out as she stared out the window and Sweeney, like always, asleep — was that Laura had directed Salim off of the pre-planned path at some point during the drive.

"This ain't Kentucky." Sweeney pointed out as he threw his hands up in the air. "Where's Kentucky?"

Walking through the entrance and approaching the counter, the group of four —composing of a Muslim cab driver, a dead woman, a disheveled leprechaun, and a mostly-forgotten goddess — certainly looked strange, but somehow, they still didn't stand out too terribly much from the regulars.

"Whew. This ain't good lighting for you, love." Sweeney commented on the fact that the dark atmosphere and fluorescent lighting did little wonders for Laura's complexion. "And a bang of benjy coming off of you," he noted the strong odor of death as well.

Approaching the four, one of the male bartenders took their orders. "What can I get you?"

"Southern Comfort and coke." Sweeney requested, always predictable with his choice of drink.

"Vodka. Straight." Laura told him.

The bartender nodded. "You got a preference?"

"As close to rubbing alcohol as you got."

"Whiskey." Brina suddenly recalled the events that had taken place the last time she had been there. "Better make it a double."

"Coffee, please." it wasn't all that surprising that Salim wasn't an alcohol kind of guy. "Black."

Without having to jot anything down, the bartender got to work. "I'll bring it to your table."

"Find a dark corner downwind," Sweeney instructed as they made their way over to one of the semi-circle booths.

Laura snickered. "Are you trying to shame me? That shit will blow up in your face. Shame is the reason dead people only go out at night."

"I have no use for shame." Salim slid into the booth, positioning himself between Laura and Sweeney. 

Pulling a pack of loose tobacco and some rolling paper out of his jacket pocket, Sweeney began to roll himself a new smoke to tuck behind his ear. "Shame, I Dream of Genie, is what kept you from gettin' tossed off a roof long enough to make it to America." he looked up at Laura. "And what do you know about dead people?"

"Uh, I had a whole tutorial with the Grim fuckin' Reaper, so I think I know a thing or two." she snapped back as she pulled out her own cigarette and tucked it between her lips. "It's easier to pass for the living in the dark, if I felt a need to pass." 

"Only thing you're passin' for is dead." 

Lighting another match, Laura shrugged. "Good."

"Not good. You don't want to draw and unnecessary attention to yourself."

"I think perhaps _you_ don't want to draw any unnecessary attention to myself. Because I have no shame." Laura repeated as the bartender delivered the drinks.

Grabbing for her glass, Brina took a big gulp, choosing to focus on the burning in her throat as the whiskey slid down instead of the constant back and forth. Sure, she and Sweeney nattered at each other quite regularly as well, but the two of them had known each for much longer and had thoroughly pissed each other off on so many occasions it was impossible to keep track; so in her mind, they had earned the right to bicker. 

"You're dead in Indiana, dead wife." Sweeney placed his hand-rolled smoke in his mouth. "What are you doin' here? Homesick? Fuck those assholes, wasn't it? Now here you are shovin' your face in 'em. Your heart's not beating for this life anymore, dead wife. This life is done."

"Only felt my heart beat one time since I died." Laura maintained. "When I kissed Shadow."

"That doesn't obligate him to feel shit. You're so worried about being alive, but to him, you're already dead." Sweeney narrowed his eyes and leaned closer. "Wait. You kissed him?"

"Yeah, I just said I kissed him."

"Put your tongue in his mouth?"

"Just the tip."

"Was it cold? And dry?"

Downing the rest of her drink, Brina placed her glass back down rather forcefully. "I'm sorry, but where the fuck is this conversation going?"

The two just ignored Brina's interruption and continued, leaving her and Salim to watch the conversation shoot back and forth like a tennis match. "Probably." Laura guessed.

"Did it taste like cigarettes and vomit?" Sweeney went on.

"I had been smoking." Laura glanced down at her cigarette and exhaled. "Perhaps I misjudged the kiss. Probably should have had some gum or a mint."

Leaning back once more, Sweeney rested his case. "Yeah, or a fuckin' Tic-Tac. If your man had any doubts about whether his wife was dead or not, that ended 'em. Death do us part. Take the fuckin' hint."

"What fuckin' hint." Laura gave a curt nod to the bartender as he brought her another vodka. 

"He's gone. Your man came, he saw ya, tasted death on your tongue, and he left. He ain't your man anymore. He's Wednesday's man. I saw him give it over." Sweeney gestured to the very table that Brina, Shadow, Wednesday, and himself had been seated at just over a week prior. "Right over there, right at that table over there. That's where he took his last glass of evil, vile fuckin' mead, and made his bargain with the devil himself."

Raising her hand to signal the bartender that she was in need of a refill, Brina nodded in agreement. "It's true. Saw it with my own eyes."

"See?" Sweeney tried his best to convince Laura, thankful for Brina's addition to the conversation. "Your piece of shit husband got a new life. Why don't you? This one got a new life." he nodded his head toward Salim. "He ain't lookin' back."

"I did," Salim confirmed. "And I'm not."

Laura was silent for a moment before speaking up. "Shadow made my heart beat again."

"I hate to break it to you, but if you have to rely on another person to make your heart beat, doesn't that say something about the sort of life — or in your case, afterlife — you're living?" Brina posed the question.

Silence followed, and in that moment everyone took another sip of their drink. "Why do men like anal sex?" Sweeney broke the silence with something so absurd and irrelevant that it made Brina's brain freeze for a second as she tried to process what she had just heard. "'Cause women don't," he answered his own question. "Not like Ibrahim bin Irem here does. He's got a button for that business, so he likes gettin' his backdoor kicked in. But your kind of love, dead wife, is the grandest butt fuckin' of 'em all. You can love somebody even when you know they don't like it. Even when you know they don't want it. That's some profound knowledge for you right there. Wrapped up in a quaint sexual metaphor."

"I don't know." Laura held her cigarette gently between two fingers as she contemplated. "I really like anal sex."

After the bar, Laura requested the group make a quick pit stop. She refrained from sharing too many details, but when Salim parked across the street from a very large house in a very rich neighbourhood and Laura got out so she could watch the family inside the house as they went about their lives, it became clear that that wasn't just anybody's family, it was Laura's family. She was saying her goodbyes the only way she knew how — by leaving them in her rearview mirror and never looking back.

Just over twenty-four hours later — twenty-four hours after the ragtag group of four had first climbed into that shit-smelling cab and headed out onto the open road — the sun was rising again, bringing with it yet another new day. 

Pulling over to the side of the road, Salim broke away from the group, laid down his prayer rug among the lush, green grass, his face to the sunrise, and began to pray to his god. The sight brought a sense of warmth to Brina's body, confirming that there were, in fact, still people in the world that worshiped their gods. 

"Allahu Akbar." Salim looked over at Laura who was sitting in the grass, smoking, flies buzzing around her. "God is great."

"Life is great, Salim/Not Salim." she smiled.

Salim nodded. "Life is great." he echoed. 

"See that?" Brina pointed at Salim as she joined Sweeney in leaning against the cab. "That right there — the pure and utter belief that is radiating off of that man. That is what we are fighting for."

Kicking at the gravel on the side of the road, Sweeney scoffed. "No, that's what you're fightin' for."

"You seem to forget that you were once great as well; that you once stood with your head held high in the face of darkness." Brina shoved her hands into her pockets and sighed, her eyes never leaving the rising sun even though she could see Sweeney watching her from her peripheral vision. "But that's okay because I remember. And someday you will again too." 


	11. I Saw You in the Flames

"'Tatanka Ska.'" Laura read aloud the sign that was posted in front of the huge buffalo statue; the main attraction at the resting stop they had parked at. "'A white buffalo believed sacred by the Lakota, was born here on the ranch of Derek Arnold Jr., on June 10th, 2008. Thousands came in pilgrimage to see it. Sadly, both Derek and the calf were killed by a lightning strike a year to the day after its birth.'"

Removing her sunglasses, as there was no more need for them due to the grey clouds that had gathered in the sky, Brina stared straight up at the ginormous buffalo. "Tough luck."

"What you get for putting a god in a petting zoo." Sweeney plucked a rolled cigarette from behind his ear and placed it between his lips. "Why'd we stop?"

Pulling his prayer rug and a bottle of water out of the taxi, Salim began to make his way over to a quieter area. "I need to pray," he stated.

"You just prayed!" Sweeney shot back, his temper rising more and more with every pit stop they made. "How many times a day is this gonna be? Tell me you don't do the full load."

Settling on a patch of grass beside an empty picnic table, Salim gently spread his rug out into the ground. "I do." he nodded. "I pray five times a day."

"Oh, God is great," Sweeney grumbled as he made his way across the street to the treeline on the other side. "I'm having a piss."

Looking up at Brina and Laura, who had taken a seat on the picnic table, Salim smiled. "You can join if you like. I can show you."

"Thank you for the offer." Brina crossed one leg over the other and sighed. "But, uh, no offense, I'm more used to being the one that people pray to, not the person doing the praying."

Shaking her head, Laura declined at well. "I'm just watching." she swatted at some of the flies that were constantly buzzing around her. "So do you love God? Or are you in love with God?"

"Hmm." Salim crouched down and clasped his hands together. "I hadn't thought of it that way. Yes, I suppose it's so. I do love my god."

As Salim placed his knit prayer cap onto his head — better known as a taqiyah — and began his prayer, Brina decided to get up and stretch her legs a little bit because she knew that after their little rest was over she would be trapped in the back of the cramped taxi with the not-so-gentle giant for another few hours. 

Strolling around the side of the lone building so she could loop back again, Brina let out a small yelp when a raven swooped down at her from nowhere and landed on the edge of the roof. Tilting its head and ruffling its feathers, the black bird let out a single caw. Looking around to make sure the coast was clear, Brina drew in a deep breath to compose herself. "Why the fuck are you here?" she glared up at the animal. "I told him I would go with the fucking leprechaun and I am! What, does he not trust me?"

Hopping to the left slightly, the bird cawed again. "Oh, that's rich." Brina rolled her eyes and chortled. "Don't think I don't know what's going on here. I used to have your job." she then picked up a stone from the ground and threw it at the bird, causing it to fly away. "Tell him I don't need to be watched!"

Once the spy-in-disguise was gone, Brina walked back around to the front of the building and met up with Laura and Sweeney. "I think we should let Salim go," Laura suggested as the three made their way back over to the Muslim cab driver.

"No, we should fucking not." Sweeney vehemently disagreed. 

"I mean, we can make our own way from here." Brina sided with the only other female in the bunch. "At this point, the only real part he is playing is as a buffer between our constant fighting."

"From here is from nowhere. I got business after your business." Sweeney told Laura before shouting at Salim. "Pack up the rug, back in the car, we got ground to cover."

"We're near enough, we don't need him anymore." Laura picked up the pace so she was walking in front of Sweeney and his long legs. 

Stopping in his tracks, Sweeney huffed. "I'm only taking this detour for you, and because of this detour, I have this she-devil following me around like a fucking lost cat," he growled at the dead woman. "You and that coin in your belly are the only reasons I'm not driving straight to House on the Rock. Christ. Think a girl on the way to her own resurrection might be keen on getting there as soon as possible."

Ignoring the leprechaun's ramblings, Laura started toward Salim once more. "House on the Rock, Wisconsin," she informed Salim as he folded his prayer rug up. "That's where they're going. That's where they're all gonna be."

Throwing his hands into the air in frustration, Sweeney exhaled in disbelief. "Why would you do that?"

"I'm releasing him," Laura answered. "You are released from your bargain. Fuck off. Go find your man. Your God, your jinn."

Frozen in shock for a second or two, Salim took some time to process before jabbing his finger at Sweeney. "You are an unpleasant creature." he then darted to the taxi and raced off, leaving clouds of dust in his wake.

Watching the yellow vehicle disappear into the distance, Brina narrowed her eyes in realization. "You know, as much as I agree with setting him free and all, did anyone think about the fact that we are now, once again, without a means of transportation?"

Grunting, and having no other way to release his anger, Sweeney put his foot right through the seat of the closest picnic table, stomping it into the dirt a few extra times afterward for good measure. 

Not in the mood to play any games or deal with the moody man, Laura took matters into her own hands and stalked toward a parked ice cream truck that had clearly seen better days. Without even bothering to see if the thing was occupied, she yanked open the back doors, taking the metal handle completely off in the process with her inhuman coin strength. 

"Hello?" a young man in shorts, a teal shirt, and a baseball cap appeared from behind the truck. "Can I help you with something, ma'am?"

"Yes," Laura responded without so much as a hint of hesitation in her voice. "I've always wanted to steal a car. So I'm gonna steal yours."

The man's mouth hung open in bewilderment and confusion. "Uh, well, it's not mine, it's my boss's."

"Okay, well, then, I'm stealing his." Laura reached into the pocket of Sweeney's jean jacket and pulled out everything inside of it before gifting it to the man. "I don't know how much is here, but you take that, you tell your boss that you were robbed, which you have been. "

"You know, not that you aren't doing great, which you are." Brina stepped up beside Laura and lowered her voice. "But typically when you rob someone, you don't give them stuff in return for the thing you are stealing. That kind of defeats the whole point of robbing."

With a wave of the hand, Laura dismissed the concern. "It's fine."

Staring at the handful of crap he had just been given, the man's mouth stretched into a tight line as he thought. "My boss is never gonna believe me if I look like this."

"No, you look fine." Laura encouraged him. "You look great."

"No, he means without having a bit of a tussle." Sweeney took back his package of loose tobacco from the man's hand. "He wants me to punch him."

The man shook his head. "Whoa, you could kill me. Can she do it?" he gestured to Laura.

"Trust me, you don't want his one hitting you," Sweeney smirked. 

"O-okay." the man looked to Brina next. "What about you?"

Brina cocked a brow. "Are you asking me to punch you?"

"I think so?"

"If you say so." Brina didn't hesitate or give the man a chance to change his mind. With one quick blow to the nose, the man crumpled to the ground in pain. "I'm sorry." she leaned over the guy afterward, wincing slightly at the sight of his nose gushing blood. Looking around, she climbed into the back of the truck and pulled a popsicle out of one of there freezers. "Here." she handed over the cold treat. "You should probably put some ice on that."

Taking the popsicle, the man placed it onto his nose before letting the three odd thieves take off in his boss's ice cream truck without so much as a grunt in opposition. 

The inside of the truck was freezing cold, as to be expected, but the sudden drop in temperature when compared to the heat of the outside had Sweeney and Brina shivering in seconds; whereas Laura, whose flesh probably benefitted from the cold, remained unaffected. 

With her hands gripping the backs of both of the seats, Brina fought the shaking in her legs as she tried to keep balanced while standing in the back of the moving vehicle. Having snatched the passenger's seat before she could, Sweeney sat there, free to cup his hands together and warm up his frozen fingers as much as he wanted.

Looking over, Laura frowned at the sight of the large man shaking so much. "Quit it, you fucking baby."

"We're not all hanger stakes." Sweeney wrapped his arms tight around his torso before reaching back and grabbing three popsicles out of the freezer. "Have at it." he began passing them out despite the fact that eating the dessert would do nothing for his rapidly dropping body temperature. 

"Seeing as how my stomach is sewn shut and not connected to the organs of digestion, I think I will pass." Laura refused the offer. 

Unwrapping the red, blue, and white popsicle, Sweeney discarded the wrapper onto the floor. "You'll be eating again soon enough."

"If your resurrection guy can do it." 

"Can and will, for a favour." Sweeney's hand filled with gold coins. "If not for gold." he slid open the side door and tossed the coins onto the road.

Furrowing her brows, Laura watched in the rearview mirror as the coins bounced along the pavement. "How much gold do you have?"

Biting off the top of the popsicle like an absolute heathen, Sweeney shrugged. "How much is in a hoard?"

"What the fuck is a hoard? And why do you have one?"

There was a moment of silence before Sweeney spoke again, his head turning so he could look back at Brina as he did so. "I was a king, once." 

Laura scoffed, an amused smile spreading across her lips. "Okay."

"He was." Brina backed up the grouchy leprechaun. 

"Then they made me a bird." Sweeney continued. "Then Mother Church came along as turned us all into saints, and trolls, and faeries. General Mills did the rest."

Keeping her eyes focused on the road, Laura nodded. "So what's the appeal? What's Wednesday selling at this god-fest that you've got to get a ticket?"

"War." Brina and Sweeney answered in unison. 

Staring out the window, his stare a million miles away, Sweeney's mind flooded with memories; dark memories. "I went to war once. Or was meant to." he started. "Long time back. On the eve of battle, I looked into the fire...and I saw my death, sure as Sunday. I saw. I knew I would die that day if I stayed. So I put on my boots, and dropped my sword, and I flew. I owe a battle."

Taking her eyes off the road, Laura's forehead crinkled with intrigue. "You're following Wednesday so that you can fight in his war and die, and for that, you run his errands?"

"I done worse than that," Sweeney admitted, his voice so low it was barely audible. 

"And what about you?" Laura looked to Brina. "Are you chasing after a war as well?"

"Technically, yes," Brina answered, her gaze still on Sweeney as he stared blankly out the window. "But it's not the war itself, it's what the victory of the war will bring."

Unsure of what exactly to say next, Laura attempted to lighten the mood. "Dying worked for me. Everyone should try it at least once. Seems like you two have walked the earth a couple hundred years in those boots already, so, you're due."

Directing her attention back to the road, Laura's eyes locked onto her lane just in time to spot the white rabbit that had darted out in front of the truck. In a foolish attempt to avoid hitting the creature, Laura swerved the truck, causing the entire thing to flip a few times, effectively crushing the exterior, shattering all of the glass, and sending the three unrestrained passengers hurdling through the air. 

While Laura catapulted through the windshield and Sweeney stayed trapped in the truck between his seat and the cement, Brina lost her balance and flew right out through the back doors and into the ditch on the side of the road. 

When her body hit one of the trees and she stopped rolling, Brina let out a wheeze and stayed put for a few minutes as she caught her breath and tried to piece together what had happened since the whole thing had gone by in the blink of an eye. 

Hearing groans coming from out of the ditch that confirmed at least someone was still alive, Brina planted her palms firmly onto the dry grass and pushed herself up. With her head spinning and her body aching, but otherwise feeling okay, Brina clawed her way back up onto the road. With one final step to go, a hand dropping down in front of Brina's face. 

Taking the large hand, Brina accepted the assistance and let Sweeney pull her the rest of the way up. After placing her hands on her hips, bending over, and taking a few more deep inhales, Brina straightened up again. "You okay?" she looked up at the leprechaun who seemed to be in about the same shape as she was.

"Yeah. You?"

"I think so."

Turning back to the accident, Brina and Sweeney laid eyes on Laura, her y-incision from her autopsy sliced open again, a few of her organs splattered on the ground around her, and Sweeney's coin having fallen out, leaving her as she was meant to be: dead. 

Not having the energy to deal with the corpse in the middle of the street at the moment, Brina plopped herself down on the side of the road and just took a moment. Not long after, Sweeney did the same thing, the two in no rush to go anywhere anymore.

"I saw you, you know?" Sweeney breathed, his forearms resting on his knees. "On the eve of the battle, I saw you. You warned me that I was going to die. You saved me."

Looking over at the redhead, Brina just nodded. "I know. I was there." 

"Am I going to die in this war?" he asked, the question so morbid that Brina wasn't sure if she would respond even if she did have the answer.

"I wish I knew," she told him truthfully. "I wish I knew anything. But I know nothing. That's why I need this war, and I need us to win this war. I can't stand not knowing anymore; not when it comes to death. I don't know how everyone else does it."

"People really don't believe anymore?"

Brina shook her head, her hair falling over her shoulders as she did so. "War isn't what it used to be."

Silence followed, and for a little while, Brina and Sweeney just sat in it. Eventually, however, it was time to get up, dust themselves off, and keep moving. "Suppose we should do somethin' about that, then?" Sweeney gestured to Laura.

"Yeah, probably." Brina agreed as she stood back up once more.

Hobbling over to his coin, Sweeney picked it up and held it tightly in his hands before kissing it. For a split-second, it seemed as though he was going to simply keep his coin and move on, leaving Laura to decompose in the middle of nowhere; but then he stopped and slowly turned back around. "Fuck!" he cursed, knowing he had to do the right thing and hating every second of it. 

As Brina scooped up the scattered organs and placed them haphazardly back into Laura's body, unsure if it mattered or not that they were in the right place, Sweeney dropping his coin back into Laura's chest and watched as it burned through her ribs and disappeared. 

Almost instantly, Laura's head snapped up and she glared at the two standing over her. Punching Sweeney in the head and pushing Brina away, Laura grabbed her red sweater from the pavement and quickly put it on to cover up the fact that she was still splayed wide open. "Don't look." she groaned before marching over to the ice cream truck and lifting it back onto its wheels again. "Come on." she was rearing to go again, despite having had her eyes glazed over and her liver on the ground, not a minute before.

"You did the right thing." Brina helped Sweeney to his feet again. 

Grumbling, Sweeney started for the truck. "Sure don't feel like it."

"That's just the feeling of getting punched in the face," Brina told him. "That never feels right." 

Even though the truck was on its last legs and most of the exterior was dented and scratched, the damn thing's engine miraculously still worked; and just like that, as if the entire accident had never even happened, the trio was back on the road. 

It was then, in the deadly silence of the open road that everything suddenly came together for Brina; almost as if the last piece of the puzzle had been found, hiding in plain sight all along. The reason why Brina couldn't force herself to cut loose while she still could and high tail it out of there wasn't because of Wednesday. In fact, it had never been about Wednesday. All along it had been about that damn leprechaun that she had metaphorically tied herself to. 

All her life Brina had worked at keeping her loyal worshipers alive; warning them of death when they strayed too close to it. For decades now though she believed her worshipers to be gone. She was wrong; there had been one right in front of her this whole time. 

Brina had saved Sweeney's life once before, and as if it were some cruel joke from the universe itself, the only thing that made her feel even remotely like her former self — the only thing that made her feel like she still had a purpose — was him; the very leprechaun that on even the best of days she couldn't stand. She felt an unexplainable pull inside of herself to stick by him, to keep him safe, to save him once again should it come down to it. 

Oh, what a cruel, cruel joke it was. 


	12. The Lord Giveth and the Lord Taketh Away

With the beaten-up ice cream truck's characteristic song playing off tune, the melody now a haunting announcement of their arrival, Laura drove slowly up the long, winding driveway until she came to the entrance of the large, beautifully decorated house that was currently hosting what looked like, upon first glance, a real who's-who party.

It was Easter day, however, so it was no surprise that the woman herself would be throwing a big bash. "Man, the last time I was here...well, the last time I was here was under rather unique circumstances, to say the least." Brina stared up at the grand house and recalled the last time she had stepped foot through the door; uninvited, that is. 

Kicking the chair of the sleeping leprechaun, Laura sighed. "Is this it?"

Jolting upright, his body covered in a blanket to keep warm, Sweeney nodded. "How'd you find it?" he asked as the three of them got out, unaware that Brina knew the directions as well.

"Shadow's here." she glanced around the property, her eyes peeled as a group of Jesus Christs passed by. "Jesus Christ. Are they all...Jesuses?" she watched as more came down the front steps toward her. "Right, of course, 'cause...Jesus is real."

"They're actually pretty chill guys," Brina smirked as she followed Sweeney to the front door. "You haven't partied until you have taken shots of Fireball with five different Jesuses." 

Laura's eyes grew wide as she continued to spot more and more prominent figures from Christianity. "Jesus Christ drinks alcohol?"

"Um, hello? Water into wine?" Brina chuckled. "Trust me, if you had to deal with the shit that they have to, you'd drink too. Humanity is fucked up, man."

Making their way through the crowds of people, careful not to draw too much attention, the trio set up camp in a quiet hallway just outside one of the many bathrooms and waited for the host herself to show up. Ostara always knew what went on at her parties, and this time would be no exception.

Standing over the bathroom counter, staring at her pale complexion in the mirror, Laura began to gag. Bending over, she opened her mouth and a pile of maggots fell out into the sink, no doubt from all of the flies that had been buzzing around and inside of her. 

Pulling open her jacket, Laura then began to prod at her incision flaps that were temporarily being held together by safety pins. "You doing okay?" Brina asked as Sweeney stood in the hall, no real desire to get any more involved than he had to.

"Yeah, yeah." Laura wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. "I just hope this resurrection guy can do what Ginger Minge says he can."

Not two seconds later, the curtains that blocked off the hallway from the rest of the party parted and the goddess of spring and dawn herself, Ostara — or as she was more commonly known as, Easter — barged in. "A dead girl?" she glared at Sweeney. "I have a house fulls of guests and a garage full of caterers and you brought me a dead girl?"

Stepping out into the hall with Laura, Brina smiled at the host. "Nice to see you again, Ostara."

"Not only did you bring me a dead girl, but you brought me _her_ as well?" Ostara growled, her beautiful, purple off-shoulder dress and perfectly done up hair making her seem incapable of such hatred. "Are you trying to ruin my day?"

Brina held her smile, careful not to upset their host and have them all kicked out. Yet another relationship forever tainted thanks to the corruption of working for Wednesday.

"Hi." Laura stepped forward, her hands clasped in front of herself. "You have a lovely home."

"Don't stoop." Ostara lifted her hand to stop Laura. "Somebody tried to raise you with refined manners, dead girl, and failed. Let me see you."

Opening her jacket again, Laura presented herself to Ostara. "She doesn't want to be dead." Sweeney piped up.

"Dead gets a bad rap. " Ostara fiddled with Laura's skin flaps.

"I don't want her to be dead." he followed up.

"Reason being?"

Sweeney leaned again the wall and exhaled. "Selfish reasons. Can you do that? Professional courtesy? Colleague to colleague?"

"You all think I'm like you. I am not like you." Ostara spoke matter-of-factly as she looked at Sweeney. "You, I'm particularly not like. And that doesn't translate into courtesies owed, professional or otherwise."

"A favour, then. You do owe me that."

With gritted teeth, Ostara inhaled sharply, unable to deny the fact that she did, indeed, owe the leprechaun a favour. "Who were you, exactly?" she questioned Laura. 

"I was, uh, Laura Moon," Laura answered. "Um, I'm still Laura Moon."

"Laura Moon," Ostara repeated the name, almost as if she were trying to jog some sort of memory. "Shadow Moon?"

"Yeah, we know he's here." Brina crossed her arms over her chest. "We also know who he's here with."

Sweeney gave a curt nod in agreement. "Best he doesn't know I'm here. Best he don't know who I'm here with."

Returning to the subject at hand, Ostara eyed up Laura. "How do you feel? I don't mean existentially, I mean physically. Sensationally. Are you in your body, but not of it?"

"I'm in my body. I feel it." Laura replied as she wrapped her jacket around her body once more. "Death hurts. I mean, mostly that hurt is just absences of things. I'm thirsty all the time. Fuckin' parched. And...cold. Cold in my bones."

"Livin' in her own apocalypse." Sweeney plucked a macaroon from the stand of desserts on the side table. 

Shivering slightly, like the mention of being cold made her even colder, Laura cleared her throat. "Did, um...did Jesus go through his own apocalypse before you brought him back to life?"

"Oh, I didn't bring Jesus back to life, no." Ostara corrected. "He was dreamed back to life on my day. A very narrow sliver in that Venn diagram."

"This is your day." Sweeney tried to boost Ostara's mood so that she might be more inclined to help. "The vernal equinox, the light of the world. Rebirth, renewal, resurrection, can you do it?"

"I can. I have. I normally wouldn't." Ostara grimaced at Sweeney, seeing right through his tactics. "But today isn't a normally kind of day. I don't resurrect, I relife. Life has always been my gift. To re-gift."

Laura smiled wide. "Well, good. Good, because...as it turns out, I actually have a lot to live for, and it's so close I can feel it. It's the only thing I can feel, so...I would really like to not be dead anymore so that I can feel it fully. So...how does this work?"

"How it works is I find out exactly why you are dead and we go from there," Ostara explained. 

Laura's eyes shifted side-to-side. "Well, I don't know why this happened. I mean, I know how, but...I don't know why."

"Come." Ostara led Laura back into the bathroom so they could have a little more privacy. "Let me have a look." Holding Laura by the shoulders, Ostara stared deep into her eyes, a small smirk playing at her lips after a while. "Ah. I'm starting to get an idea. Folks have always been curious about that exact moment of death. As if the difference between one side of that divide and the other could be quantified. Some believe that you can develop a last image seen off their retinas. Like a photograph." 

Pulling back, Ostara gasped. Placing one hand onto Laura's cheek, her eyes went to Sweeney, who was hiding in the shadows the best he could. All in all, Brina and Laura were beyond confused.

"Death is usually the last enemy." Ostara linked arms with Laura and led her back into the hall. 

"Right but not for, uh...not for Jesus Christ." Laura nervously chuckled.

Caressing her cheek again, Ostara shook her head. "Oh, not for you. And you're no Jesus Christ." she then turned to Sweeney. "Are you still working for the man?"

"I was." Sweeney bit his bottom lip, his shifty actions giving away that he was obviously hiding something.

"About that, we have a problem here."

Laura's face scrunched with worry. "A problem with me?"

"Oh, no. Not with you, you." Ostara assured her, trying her best to keep her calm. "You are perfectly lovely, but you dead, yes, is a problem for me."

"Well, no, but you said that you could re-gift the gift, I need the gift." Laura began to panic and her words started shooting out at lightning speed. "I need to be alive."

Deciding to finally pipe up once more, Brina held her hand up like a student in class. "I'm sorry, but if I may, I thought you said you can do it? Can you not do it?"

"I can't help you with your dead," Ostara told Laura plainly. "You are dead of a different kind."

Sweeney closed his eyes and sighed. "Fuck."

"How am I dead different?" Laura was having trouble wrapping her mind around what was happening. 

"Laura Moon, you were killed by a god. I can't interfere with that. That is a dead without undoing. Not by my hand, anyway." Ostara dropped the bomb just as one of her white rabbits — oddly very similar to the one that caused the ice cream truck accident — hopped up onto the table beside her and relayed a message that only she could understand. "Oh, shit. I have other guests." she excused herself with a sweet smile. "Good luck."

And just like that, as soon as she had appeared, Ostara was gone again. "I was killed...by a god?" Laura repeated, giving herself a chance to adjust to the news. "Which fucking god?" she seethed, her death glare directed at Sweeney.

When the stubborn man refused to answer, Laura wasted no time in grabbing him by the balls and slamming him into the wall. "Which fucking god?" she asked again, squeezing tighter and tighter for every second she didn't get an answer. 

"Me fucking god. I ran you off the road." Sweeney finally confessed, the pain too much to hold in the secret any longer. 

"See, here I thought I knocked the gear shift with my shoulder." Laura refused to let him go just yet. "All this time, I've been blaming myself. I guess now I have somebody else to blame, right?"

Crying out in pain, a burst of fury ran through Sweeney's veins. "That's right, I killed you! I killed you fucking dead."

"No!" Laura snapped. "You are not a god! She said that I was killed by a god. You are a lot of things, but you are not a god. Which fucking god?" she tightened her grip even more. "I will squeeze them straight out of the sac. It'll be kind of like shucking peas. I swear to Jesus. He's right outside. 

"Oh, just fucking tell her already!" Brina was pretty sure she had figured out who had ordered the hit. "We all already know who it is! Just say it!"

"Wednesday."

Satisfied with the answer, Laura let go of Sweeney's balls and let him fall to the floor. "Fuck that guy." she breathed, clearly furious, as she should be. "Why? Why me? Why murder me?"

Laying on the floor in a puddle of agony, Sweeney sucked in air through his gritted teeth. "You weren't murdered, you were sacrificed."

"Shadow, right?" Laura ventured a guess. "So why does Shadow matter?"

"He doesn't! He's nothing." Sweeney sat up and leaned back against the wall. "He's no-one who just...just happens to be the guy."

Bending down, Laura's face flushed with realization. "When we robbed the casino, did Wednesday fuck up my perfect plan?" she referred to the stunt that had gotten Shadow thrown in jail in the first place.

Sweeney scoffed. "It wasn't a perfect plan. Didn't account for divine intervention, did you?"

"The whole fucking time, the robbery, Shadow going to jail, me dying, act of god?" Laura clarified. "Just fucking with us to fuck with us?"

"Well, if there's one thing I know about Wednesday, he doesn't do things just to do them." Brina shared her small amount of knowledge. "There's always a reason, even if it doesn't make sense to anyone but himself."

Sweeney, on the other hand, was perfectly accepting of that explanation. "What do you think gods do? They do what they've always done: they fuck with us. They fuck with all of us. Just don't take it personally. I don't." there was a slight pause. "He needed your man. Needed him to be in a place where he had nothing left in the world. Nothing to lose, 'cause he already lost everything."

"What does Wednesday have to lose?" a look of determination and pure loathing spread across Laura's face. With that, she stood up and stalked off, no doubt on her way to look for the man himself.

Groaning, Sweeney held out his hand so Brina could help him stand. Staring at the hand but refusing to take it, Brina just shook her head slowly. "Is that what you think of me?" she took a step back. "I mean, with Wednesday, I get it. But all of us? Me? I know we haven't always been like two peas in a fucking pod but fucking with you just to fuck with you? I could have let you die that night. I could have let you go to battle and perish like the rest of your brethren. We're not all bad, and for your own good, I pray you come to that realization sooner rather than later."

Pushing her way through the curtains and weaving in and out of the crowds of people, Brina located the balcony that overlooked the large backyard of the estate. Placing her hands on the railing and peering down, Brina caught sight of Easter, and with her, a woman dressed in pink with an army of faceless men in suits. "What if they all decide that God doesn't exist?" the woman in pink posed the question, her voice immediately giving her away; it was the same voice that had spoken to Brina over the TV and radio, trying to recruit her for the other side.

"What if they decide God does exist?" Wednesday came strolling in, Shadow by his side, the both of them dressed head to toe in custom suits by the looks of it. 

"Whose god?" the new media goddess retorted. "They're not all going to choose just one."

Wednesday shrugged as he stepped closer. "Well, it doesn't matter. Plenty of worship to go around once worship gets redistributed."

"We are the distributors. The platform and the delivery mechanism." Media held her ground. "We control the story. We control the flow."

"We are the flow." a boy, younger than the rest, appeared out of thin air. He must have been the technical boy that Shadow had mentioned; the one that kidnapped him and tried to lynch him. 

Wednesday rolled his eyes. "What you offer is existential crisis aversion. Don't look over there, look over here. Don't listen to that, listen to this. You provide a product, an innovative distraction and you keep innovating it and you keep providing it. The beauty of what we do is we only need to inspire."

"Hmm." the boy mocked, his blinged-out teeth glittering in the sunlight when he smirked. "You don't have the juice. And don't act like your fucking rent boy here is your disciple. Here's the thing: you're old as fuck. Things are never going back to the way that they were. The times, they are a changing. You can't fight progress."

"Then why are you here?" Wednesday countered. "Why do I matter? "

"We're here for her." Media gestured to Ostara with her gloved hand. "And, if she'll have us, her." she then pointed up at Brina, which caused Wednesday and Shadow to look up at her. "We're here for my friends. And you don't matter. Not really. Not anymore. You could have, but..."

Unwilling to bow to the likes of a couple of new, know-it-all gods, Wednesday continued to retaliate. "People create gods when they wonder why things happen. Do you know why things happen? Because gods make them happen. You want to know how to make good things happen? Be good to your god. You give a little, you get a little. The simplicity of that bargain has always been appealing. That's why you're here and that's precisely why I matter."

Stepping forward, one of the faceless men stomped his cane against the ground, causing his body to contort with pixels until a man's face appeared on the bare flesh. "You only matter in matters of war," he spoke, his voice electronic-sounding and echoing as his body glitched every few seconds. "And there's not going to be a war. We have the guns. We have the firepower. You have the swords and knives and hammers and stones axes." the lovely weather began to subside as dark clouds formed and the wind began to kick up. "We fight, we win. We don't fight, we win."

"You die out either way." the boy added for good measure. 

"You are the passenger pigeons and thylacines." the man who seemed to be in charge of this whole new gods movement stated. "Nobody cares about you. It's either going to be a bloodbath, or we'll wait you out and get the whole thing without a fuss. My message to you: don't fight."

Unphased, Wednesday shook his head. "I don't have to fight." the storm clouds grew darker and thicker. "I have faith. I dedicate these deaths to Ostara."

"Which deaths?" Media cautiously peered up at the flashes of lightning that illuminated the sky, a single bolt striking down and taking out the entire group of faceless henchmen seconds later. 

"Do you have faith, Shadow?" Wednesday turned to his man, and finally, after days of preparing him, it was time for Shadow to know. 

Unsure of how to answer, Shadow swallowed hard. "What are you?"

"Do you know me? Do you know what I am? Do you want to know my name?"

Shadow nodded. "Tell me."

"This is what I am called. I am called Glad-O-War, Grim, Raider, and Third. I am One-eyed. I am also called Highest, and True-Guesser." the storm around began to get worse and worse, the flashes of lightning painting the sky in bright light and shades of purple. "I am Grimnir, and the Hooded One. I am All-Father, Gondlir, Wand-bearer. I have as many names as there are winds. As many titles as there are ways to die. My ravens are Huginn and Muninn. Thought and Memory. My wolves are Freki and Geri. My horse is the gallowed. I am Odin!"

"Odin..." Shadow exhaled, his eyes wide and mouth hung open.

Wednesday grinned. "Odin, and you are Ostara of the Dawn. Show them who you are."

Filled with a sense of confidence and pride, Ostara stepped forth, closed her eyes, and rose her arms into the air, parting the dark clouds and once again filling the sky with bright sun. A strong, warm breeze began to blow, carrying coloured leaves and flower petals with it. Then, to prove that she could take away just as much as she could give, Ostara lowered her arms, turning the once lush grass into dry dirt and the flourishing foliage into dead, rotting branches. 

The world around them was barren, and with a triumphant smile on her face, Ostara opened her eyes again. "What have you done?" Media gasped.

"You wanted a war, Glad-of-War?" the electronic voice carried through the air, having no real origin. "You have one. Be glad. It will be the war you die in."

"Tell the believers and the non-believers: tell them we've taken the spring." Wednesday was practically glowing with power. "They can have it back when they pray for it." he then turned back to Shadow, who was still in shock. "Do you believe?"

"I believe." the words felt foreign and strange coming out of Shadow's mouth.

"What do you believe, Shadow?"

A smile of enlightenment danced its way across Shadow's face. "Everything."


	13. Forget the Mistake. Remember the Lesson

Squished in the back seat of Wednesday's car between Laura and Wednesday himself, Brina stared past Shadow's and Sweeney's heads and at the seemingly never-ending stretch of road in front of them. As fun as road trips were, this one was starting to lose its appeal quickly. 

No one was talking very much thus far, so the only sounds that could be heard were those of the vehicle, the radio playing softly, and the irritating slurping coming from Sweeney and his empty soda cup. 

Deciding to head straight to Wisconsin without any more pit stops or recruitment meetings, the group of five drove for hours on end, only pulling over to grab food, use the washroom, or switch out drivers. 

"Isn't this fun?" Laura finally broke the silence, her comment directed at Wednesday, who was currently in the driver's seat. "I still don't understand how such a sweet old man could have so many enemies."

Brina snorted, "Yeah, _sweet old man._ "

Choosing to ignore the dig, Wednesday sighed, "Oh, it's perfectly simple, my dear. Jealousy. Pure unmitigated jealousy. They all want what I have. A good time, wherever I go."

"He's the original good time that was had by all," said Sweeney.

"And I get to ride along with you," Laura clicked her tongue. "I must be the luckiest girl in the world."

"That you are." Sweeney confirmed, "But it's my bloody luck you're feeding on, dead wife." he tossed his cigarette bud out the window only for it to fly back in and hit him on the chest. The other patrons in the car chuckled, glad for Sweeney's misfortune if for no other reason than it brought entertainment.

As the laughter died down, Wednesday drove past a sign for the very place they were heading to, the House on the Rock. "What is the House on the Rock?" Laura asked.

"A place where people come to play, look, and wonder," Wednesday told her.

"Like Disney World." 

Wednesday shook his head. "Dear old Walt. Built a Magic Kingdom without any magic. Whereas in some parts of Florida, there is real magic. Oh, remember the mermaids of Weeki Wachee, Sweeney?"

"Aye." Sweeney grinned. "Been there and done several of them."

"Who knew they'd be into that kind of thing, huh?"

Turning to look at Brina and Laura in the back seat, Sweeney winked. "They're a very passionate species."

Brina furrowed her brows. "Why are you telling me this as if I don't already know? I've been to Weeki Wachee; just apparently not for the same reason as you two."

"Do you believe in mermaids now?" Laura looked to Shadow; the two of them having not said very much to each other during the car ride. 

"I don't know what I believe in yet." Shadow scoffed as he flipped his coin between his fingers, "I guess...I dunno, I...I guess I believe in him," he gestured to Wednesday. "I want to believe in you."

══════════════════

Leaning against the car, Brina basked in the sun while the group waited for Shadow to pick the lock on the gate to the House on the Rock. With the attraction currently closed, everyone attending the meeting would be needing to find alternate ways into the building.

"What's the hold-up, Shadow?" Wednesday finally piped up.

Shadow mumbled something to himself before turning around. "Will you just give me a minute?"

"You want me to bust it, Shadow?" Laura offered, "I can."

Shadow, who had yet to be informed about his wife's super strength, narrowed his eyes. "Wha-?" he questioned, the gate slowly swinging open in the process.

Standing on the other side of the metal fence, a dark-skinned man dressed in an impeccable blue plaid suit with a yellow tie, yellow pocket square, and black hat with a yellow ribbon, smirked. With his fingers together, he stared back at the group and took a step forward. If the suit hadn't given him away, the outrageous sideburns did.

"Mad Sweeney?" Mr. Nancy smiled wide when he spotted the leprechaun. "Is that you? Or is that Wednesday's bullshit I smell?"

"A keen nose, Mr. Fancypants." Sweeney replied, "But that ain't Irish sexy you're smelling. It's Roadkill Rhonda over here."

Noticing another body looming around the vehicle, Nancy took Brina by the hand and kissed her knuckles. "Ah, but apparently it was Irish sexy I was smelling." 

"Finally, we meet up with someone who doesn't hate me." Brina laughed, "It's good to see you again, Nancy. How have you been?"

Before the well-dressed gentleman could answer, however, Wednesday made his presence known. "Nancy!" he greeted, "So, who'd you bring me? John Henry?"

"No, choo-choo train. No John Henry. You know that." Nancy shook his head.

"Oh, Whiskey Jack?"

"No whiskey. No Whiskey Jack."

"Not even the rabbit?"

"Ha!" Nancy cackled, "You are persona non grata in the rabbit community. I think you know why. So, Easter told me to tell you she ain't coming on account of you mowing over bunnies with your car like some kinda fucking rabbit racist."

Remembering just how many enemies he truly did have, Wednesday sighed, "Hmm."

Turning on his heel, Nancy continued to greet the party members. "Shadow Moon! Did I or did I not just thrust your rusty butt into bespoke haberdashery just a few days ago?" he eyed up Shadow's lack of a suit jacket, making his once refined outfit lack any real 'wow' factor.

"You're very welcome to come to the house, but you're not invited to the party," Wednesday told Laura as Brina and the others started to make their way up the long driveway. 

"Oh, I'm just keeping an eye on my husband," Laura assured him.

"Well, look at him. He's got a spring in his step he didn't have when he left prison."

"Which is strange since his wife was murdered." Laura hinted to the fact that she knew who had killed her. 

Wednesday exhaled. "Highways can be very dangerous places. If it's any comfort, I know what it's like to be dead. I once sacrificed myself for knowledge. I hung on the great tree, Yggdrasil, for nine days and nine nights."

"And look at you now, all alive."

"And I learned a great deal. You don't have to be roadkill forever. I'm sure we can come to an arrangement."

Leaning in, Laura smirked. "Fuck you and your glass eye."

The walk up to the house was rather beautiful since the pathway weaved through fountains and beautiful stretches of forest. After the uphill climb, Brina grabbed onto the door handle and pulled it open. Stepping into the room covered from floor to ceiling in various knick-knacks and artifacts, she saw two people staring back at her and instantly recognized their faces; Salim and the man in the blue suit from the diner. 

"Hey, Salim-not-Salim." Laura smiled at their previous travel-buddy.

"It is...showtime." Wednesday took the man from the diner, who Brina now realized was the jinn, by the hand. "Do I know you?" he looked at Salim. "Hubal? Manat?"

"No, uh, my name is Salim. I am with him." he pointed to the jinn. 

"Oh," Wednesday nodded before taking the jinn aside. "So, tell me, do we have a full house?"

"I showed them to the carousel, as you requested."

"How many?"

The jinn shrugged. "A dozen, perhaps. No more."

"It'll be enough to light the fire," Wednesday concluded. 

"There is one who was not invited." the jinn stepped aside and looked to a woman who was standing a few meters away. For once, it was someone Brina had not met before, and thus, someone she hadn't had the chance to piss off yet.

Taking a coin — the method of entry — from the jinn's hand, Wednesday continued on. Following suit, Nancy took one, and then so did Brina. Even Shadow got one. However, it seemed as though not everyone, as previously mentioned, was invited to the party.

When Laura and Sweeney tried to pass, the jinn stopped them. "Can't ride without a coin."

"Oh, feck off." Sweeney grunted, "Give us a coin then."

"She's not on my list, nor are you."

Brina, who was standing on the other side of the jinn, held her coin between two fingers and waved it around, tauntingly. "Sorry, Buddy, only room for one Irish on this ride."

"Come on, shit-for-brains." Sweeney snapped, "You know me! I'm working for your man!"

Wednesday, hearing the commotion, turned around for a second and merely shrugged. "He was most specific..." the jinn removed his sunglasses, revealing his characteristic flaming eyes. "...about you."

"I'll tell you all about it." Brina mocked as the disgruntled leprechaun returned to the sidelines along with Laura and Salim. 

Jogging to catch up, Brina re-joined the rest of the group moving forward. "You invited the Old Gods to your party?" the mystery woman questioned Wednesday, "I was old in the desert before they sacrificed the first horse to you. I will be heard. Unless you are afraid."

"The wit and wisdom of Queen Bilquis defeated King Solomon." Wednesday acknowledge her accomplishments. "At the start of any new quest for adventure, it behooves us to consult the Norns, our foretellers of destiny." he walked over to the fortune-telling machine. "After you, Your Majesty."

With Bilquis going first, one by one the accepted members placed their coins into the machine and got their fortune in return. Picking her card out of the metal slot, Brina turned it over and read the results to herself.

**Selina's Prophecies**

**War never takes a wicked man by chance, the good man always.**

**Your lucky number is eight**

**Your lucky color is black**

**Motto: Forget the mistake. Remember the lesson.**

"'Every ending is a new beginning.'" Shadow was the only one to read his aloud. "'Your lucky number is none. Your lucky colour is dead. Motto: Like father, like son.'"

"Oh, well, like all fortunes, Shadow: opaque on arrival, inevitable in retrospect." Wednesday continued the walk. "Shall we?"

Shadow, still perplexed by his card, furrowed his brows. "It's a motherfuckin' fortune from a wax dummy. Dummy!" Nancy told him.

In a single-file line, the four gods and Shadow made their way through the narrow halls of the House on the Rock, the displays on either side of them showing off a wide range of items. "Apparently, the houses in this area were built by some skinny white motherfucker named Frank Lloyd Wright." Nancy expelled his knowledge. "Some say his evil twin brother built this one: Frank Lloyd Wrong. Another skinny white motherfucker."

Coming to an abrupt stop, Wednesday stepped to the side of the path. "You carry on, Nancy. I'll catch up with you all at the Raven."

"Indeed." Nancy nodded as he took over leading the way, Wednesday breaking off from the group to go do whatever it was that Wednesday did. 

After making it to the meeting spot, the four found places to sit or stand while they waited for Wednesday to re-join them. Shadow, like always, was flipping his coin between his fingers. "You're a big one." Bilquis looked Shadow up and down, commenting on his large frame. 

"Built like a brick shithouse." Nancy said, "Twenty-eight-inch shoulders; long, lean lines." he added, his knowledge of Shadow's dimensions coming from the suit he had made him. "But your posture's for shit. Been hunchin' over your whole life. When you take a man's measurements, you get a bill for his life expenses. Little Shadow Moon was a shrimpy little kid...roughed around on the block until what... fourteen, you put on two feet and sixty pounds?"

Shadow smirked. "Fifteen."

Inhaling on the cigarette he had just lit, Nancy nodded. "Still fifteen on the inside though, ain't you, boy? You know, I got a son, stupid as a man who bought his stupid at a two-for-one sale. You remind me of him."

Shadow, unsure of where the conversation was going, scoffed, "All right, well, if you don't mind, I'll just take that as a compliment."

"Being called late than a motherfucker on the day they handed out brains is a complement to you?"

"Okay, Nancy." Brina piped up as she watched the interaction unfold. "Take it easy on him. He's still adjusting."

There was a moment of silence before Shadow spoke again. "Being compared to a member of your family." he corrected Nancy.

Nancy chuckled, "You might not be the worst choice old One-Eye could have made, come to that."

Before long, Wednesday returned and reclaimed his role of tour guide, raddling off facts as he led the group deeper and deeper into the house. "So, over the centuries, people in other countries felt call to places of power. They knew there was an energy there, a focus point, a channel. A window to the Immanent. And they built churches, cathedrals, or they'd erect a stone circle. Well, you get the idea."

"Yeah, but there's churches all through the states." Shadow reminded.

"No, in the good old USA, people still heed the call of the transcendent void, but they respond to it by building a model out of beer bottles of somewhere they've never visited, or by erecting a giant bat house in some part of the country that bats have traditionally declined to visit."

"Or they sell T-shirts and hot dogs."

"Roadside attractions!" Wednesday exclaimed, "Where they buy that hotdog and they buy that T-shirt. And they wander around feeling satisfied on a level that they cannot truly describe, and profoundly dissatisfied on a level beneath that."

As the rant about road-side attractions came to an end, so did the walk. "You know, you have got some pretty whacked-out theories," Shadow noted as they came upon the door to the carousel room. 

"Nothing theoretical about it, you should know that by now." Wednesday opened the door. "Time...to ride."


	14. Evolve or Die

The carousel room was spectacular. After walking up the long, red silk walkway, the group of five came upon the brilliantly lit room, the white lights standing out against the red walls and overall hue of the attraction. In the middle of the large room, a carousel bigger than any Brina had seen before turned slowly — slow enough for someone to simply step onto it without a problem. 

"Feel the power, Shadow?" Wednesday held his arms out, presenting the carousel to Shadow almost like a gift. 

If Shadow couldn't feel the power, Brina certainly could. For the first time in years, she could feel a sensation akin to electricity flowing through her bones; all she needed was to complete the circuit and she would feel as bright and shiny as the carousel looked.

"Like a prayer wheel, going round and round, accumulating power." Nancy was in awe of the beauty.

"Gazed upon by the faithful," Bilquis added as they each stepped onto the spinning carnival ride and chose an exquisitely painted horse or another animal to sit on, leaving Shadow still starstruck at the entrance.

"If you follow the signs, you'll never have any mother-fucking fun!" Nancy exclaimed, shifting on his lion as he caught Shadow looking at the 'No Riding the Carousel' sign. 

Standing among the animals, Wednesday smiled. "Won't you join us, Shadow?"

Moving through the poles and animals, Brina settled on a zebra-striped horse and swung her leg over. Grabbing onto the pole with her hands, she could feel even more power shooting through her fingertips. 

Finally, Shadow stepped onto the ride as well and chose the first option in front of him, an eagle. Once everyone was seated, the real fun began. Gradually, the carousel itself and the music sped up until the ride was moving so quickly the individual lights looked like single streams and the music's rhythm was so quick it was anxiety-inducing.

Just when it felt as though she couldn't hold on any longer, a flash of light took over the entire room until it was clear that Brina was no longer in that room. Colours danced around her vision and stars shot across her irises; and finally, the circuit was complete.

When Brina came to again she was in a place that she had only been to a handful of times before, the otherworld inside of Wednesday's mind. It was a beautifully powerful place, and although Brina wasn't too fond of the person whose mind she was in, she was very fond of the strength and familiarity running through her veins.

With an intoxicating glow coming off of her body — along with everyone else's — Brina looked down at herself and smiled wide. It had been centuries since she had felt the soft fabric of her dress on her body, the black feathers a characteristic touch that she hadn't sported in far too long. 

Moving through the Norse-styled building, Brina walked past the torches that shot sparks up into the air and joined the other gods around Wednesday himself — or as he was better known here, Odin. As soon as Bilquis and Shadow joined, the meeting had started and various colours of flames became to emit from everyone's bodies.

Grabbing two knives from their sheathes and stabbing them into a wooden table, Nancy cackled; his African warrior outfit far different from the suits he usually wore these days. "Time for a story!" he exclaimed, "'Cause sometimes, people need reminding of things." his African accent was much stronger than normal. "We have been fighting since the Portuguese invaded the Gold Coast of Ghana! We stay at war. And just because we are few and they are many, does not mean that we are lost!"

With a wave of Nancy's hands, the large fire burning in the background grew bigger, the flames reaching as high up as they could. "When people first came to America...they brought us with you," Wednesday addressed the gathering, his spear in hand and right eye missing now that he was in his true form. "Me, Loki, Thor, Nancy, Morrígan, the Lion-God, all of you. We rode in their minds and took root. But gradually, they abandoned us for a better deal. A new life in a new land. Our true believers passed away or stopped believing. Left us to fend for ourselves, to get by on what little smidgens of belief or worship we could find. And that's what we've done. We've gotten by. We live in cracks at the edges of society. Old, forgotten gods...in a land without gods. But there are new gods growing in America. They've already replaced us. Now they want to destroy us, completely, and if you think otherwise, you are fooling yourselves."

"You want us to go to war?" Mama-ji, the Hindu goddess of war better known as Kali, stepped forward. "You called everyone here for this nonsense? Most of us have lived in peace in this country for a long time. I have seen the New Gods rise. I have seen them fall. I say we wait."

Wednesday, obviously, disagreed. "Czernobog is with us. He has brought his hammer to the fight."

"Yeah, when the time is right, my hammer will swing." Czernobog stood and lifted his hammer onto his shoulder, red flames surrounding his body as he did so.

"And we will need it." Wednesday nodded. "Believe me, these New Gods are not going anywhere soon."

"From one god of war to another..." Mama-ji continued, "when I look out my window, I see no battlefields. I hear no war cries. "

"Than you are not looking hard enough, Mama-ji."

Brina, decided, as a war god as well, should throw in her two cents. "Oh, the war cries are there, all right. It's just not us they are crying to anymore. I don't know about anyone else, but this stagnant existence isn't enough anymore. Soon, there will be no believers left, and thus, there will be none of us left."

"Odin's right," Bilquis said, "These New Gods have more followers, more attention, more power than we ever did. Where he is wrong is in thinking this is a bad thing. They showed me how to use their tools. Now I can bring my message directly to my people. I accept my worship, my way. And I grow in power. The choice is yours. Evolve or die."

There was a pause after Bilquis and it was obvious everyone was taking a chance to really think about what they wanted and how they wanted to achieve it. In the absence of a god's voice, Shadow spoke up, "I believe him. I lost everyone. Everyone that I ever cared about. Everything I knew. To a point where I forgot who I was. Lost my light. That's what my mom would've said. But Wednesday...Odin...is helping me remember. He's giving me the chance to be worthy of that unwavering faith and belief that my mother once had in me. And it sounds to me like he's offering you the same thing. So, why won't you just let him help you? Just help him. Help him remind the people who you are! Regain the faith of your Creator and just take the chance! Take the chance to be worthy of their belief."

══════════════════

As soft country music played from a jukebox in the corner, the Motel America diner was full of gods, humans, and those somewhere in between. For the most part, Shadow's moving speech had convinced everyone to side with Wednesday, which was cause for celebration. So, with good food, good drinks, and good company, a good time was sure to be had by all.

With a pitcher of wine in hand, Wednesday practically skipped up to Brina before refilling her empty glass. "Aren't you spry?" Brina lifted the glass and took a sip. "Can't blame you though. That went better than I thought it would."

"I think we're really winning them over." Wednesday smiled. "So, I guess I should finally get this out of the way. How's it looking for us, huh?"

"How's what looking?" Brina furrowed her brows.

"The war, battle, whatever you want to call it." Wednesday clarified. "How is our fate looking?"

Brina scoffed, "If I knew the answer to that do you think I would be here?" she paused for a moment. "I tried to look, but it's foggy. Nothing is clear...it's like a fortune: opaque on arrival, inevitable in retrospect."

"Nothing? Not even a feeling?"

"Well, there's a feeling, but there's no real way to know what it is in reference to." Brina leaned in a lowered her voice. "It feels dark and cold. It feels like death, and if there's one feeling I know, it's death."

Wednesday didn't seem at all alarmed. "Death is to be expected. Victory, however, is what I'm interested in."

Then, with a pep in his step, the older man left to go refill more glasses and win more people over to his way of thinking. With her drink in hand, Brina shrugged off the encounter and joined Shadow and Nancy at one of the tables, desperate for some semi-normal conversation and excited about the aspect of being out of a vehicle for more than five hours.

"So, what did you think?" Brina cocked an eyebrow in curiosity toward Shadow. "Belief's never felt so good, right?"

"It's certainly...something," Shadow answered, causing Nancy to chuckle. "Hey, can I ask you something?"

Slightly worried about what the question was going to be, but more intrigued than anything, Brina nodded. "Sure, go ahead. No promises I'll answer truthfully though."

"Everyone keeps warning me about Wednesday, and I know that if so many people are telling me the same thing — you included — I should be wary, but he doesn't seem malicious to me."

"And your questions is...?"

"I guess I want to know, if he is such a bad guy, why does everyone keep coming back to him? Why did you?" he inquired, "What did he do to you that made you hate him so much in the first place?"

For a second Brina toyed with the idea of not answering at all, but then her fortune card from Selina's Prophecies popped into her head: 'Forget the mistake. Remember the lesson.' There was certainly a lesson to be learned in that story, and it was a lesson that could possibly prove useful to Shadow in the future. 

"It was a long time ago." Brina prefaced the tale. "Back when I had worshipers and power flowed through me like water through a stream. Back when I was truly a god. But even gods have weaknesses, and more often than not, as stories will prove, that weakness is love. He was a mortal warrior who I had saved from death. I saved a lot of men from death, but he was different. He was human but he was strong and smart and...and I fell in love with him. His only vice was he loved battle, almost as much as I do...the only difference being that death was a possible consequence for him; a possible consequence he strayed close to far too often. 

"I could only save him so many times before it caught up with me. He was on his last legs, bleeding out in my arms, and I begged Odin to save him. I said I would do anything, something I now regret. Odin did as he promised, he always does, but there was a catch. One of Odin's birds I would become — his eyes in the sky. To hold up my end of the bargain I had to leave the man I loved and in my absence, he went back to war, only this time I wasn't there to warn him or beg for his life. A sword through the heart killed him...and in my darkest times, I wonder what would have been different if I had just let him die the first time around. I would have gotten to say goodbye and move on. No promises, no deals, no drawn-out heartbreak. In the end, I learned my lesson: not everything precious is worth bargaining for."

Shadow was silent for a moment or two, his breathing slow and quiet as he processed. "And why did you come back?"

Finishing off her drink, Brina smirked. "Because this _is_ worth bargaining for. This is all I am, all that I have left. Without this, I am nothing but a forgotten fairytale. Without this, death is a possible consequence for me too."

"Was that you answering truthfully?"

"That's as truthful as I've been in a long time."

Staring past Brina at Laura, Shadow flashed her a polite smile before excusing himself. Once he was out of earshot, Nancy folded one leg over the other and sighed. "Lovin' got you down?" 

"I need another drink," Brina stated as she cradled her once again empty glass in her hands and made her way over to the bar. Sliding up beside Sweeney, Brina spotted the bottle of alcohol in front of him and reached for it. "What is this?" she began to pour the contents into her glass without even bothering to read the label. "Nevermind. I don't care."

"Whoa, easy there." Sweeney watched the liquid flow. "What's eatin' you? I thought war recruitment was going peachy keen." 

Downing the alcohol in a matter of seconds, hoping the buzz would kick in soon, Brina shook her head. "I do have other problems aside from Wednesday's problems." 

"Aye, but those problems don't matter."

Topping off her glass one last time, Brina tapped it against Sweeney's. "Cheers to that."

Brina lifted the glass to her mouth, but before the alcohol even touched her lips, chaos unraveled. A single gunshot rang out, and one of the many gods in attendance was shot through the head, the bullet piercing his skull and splattering his brains onto the table in front of him. Screams rang out, more bullets were fired, glass shattered, and war had been declared.

As everyone ducked for cover, desperately trying to get out of the line of fire, Wednesday stood in the middle of the diner, frozen in place as he watched his recruits crumble to the ground, the life seeping from the fresh bullet holes in their bodies.

Without thinking, Brina grabbed Sweeney by the arm and tugged him over the bar with herself. More gunshots rang out, more screams echoed through the establishment, and more bodies fell to the ground. 

After a while, when the attack had stopped, one by one the patrons left alive rose to their feet, fear in their eyes and horror around them. In the aftermath, everyone was drawn to a particular body sprawled out on the carpeted floor: Zorya Vechernyaya. 

Dropping to his knees beside the woman, Wednesday pulled her into his arms. With the last bits of life slowly draining from her eyes, Zorya gasped for breath, the bullet wound on her chest staining her dress red and bright crimson blood dripping from her mouth. "You are such a...bad good man," Zorya told Wednesday with her final moments as Czernobog came over and held her hand in his. "I do not...wish to...say goodbye."

The room was dead silent as Zorya drew in her last breath, and as her body fell limp in Wednesday's arms, Czernobog scowled. "Whoever did this, I curse." he screamed at the ceiling and beyond that, the sky, "I curse you! I curse you with the Czernobog's curse! Fuck you, and fuck your mother, and fuck that fucking horse that you rode in on. You will not even die in a battle. No warrior will taste your blood. No one alive will take your life. She will find you...and you will die with a sweet kiss on your lips and eternal darkness in your soul."

"Is this what it takes?" Wednesday asked before planting a kiss on Zorya's forehead, "Is this what it takes?"

"You okay?" Sweeney looked down at Brina, his large hand coming to rest on her shoulder. 

With one hand over her mouth, Brina nodded as her blood began to boil. That was it, no more doubting, no more denial, no more fucking around. If a war was really what it was going to take to settle things, then a war there would be. 

Peace would eventually come to the gods, but only through bloodshed. 


	15. Big Wheels Keep On Turning

Once the sun had risen, bringing light to the true tragedies that had taken place the night before, the survivors of the attack were left to pick up the pieces. Many had been killed, everyone alive was full of sorrow, and somehow, in all of the mayhem, Shadow had gone missing.

Laying Zorya's body down gently in the back of his truck, Czernobog grunted as the wind blew strong that morning. "This is not good." he stated as he laid a sheet over Zorya, "There's much to be done. The bell must ring. Mirrors covered. Windows opened. We must sprinkle the holy salt-"

"Czernobog." Mama-ji cut him off. "We will summon the next Zorya."

With anger in his eyes, Czernobog glared at Wednesday. "Votan! You let the dust of the old star slip right through your fingers, huh? There are no more believers left for Zorya. So there will be no more life for her. But I know a new star will soon rise from the horizon. And the hound's gate will rest in the hands of this newborn star. We must pray that she's up to the task. If not, this country will be barren of believers."

"This is what I was afraid of." Brina muttered, "Immortal isn't looking as permanent as we once thought."

"First a whimper, then a crescendo." said Wednesday, "You will have your vengeance, my friends."

Jumping down from the bed of the truck, Czernobog closed the back and sighed. "When my hammer swings, the earth with tremble...the mountains will break, and the ocean will rise, and our enemies will be banished to the deepest darkness of the nine hells. Votan...this country is no good. "

As Czernobog got into his truck and drove off without another word, Mama-ji turned to Wednesday, disappointment plastered on her face. "You have your war, Grimnir."

"Mama-ji, you hear the battle cries. May I count on your blades?"

"You brought the fight to my doorstep. I have no choice but to resume the lopping of heads, drinking of blood, and liberating of souls. That is, if I can swap my weekend shift with Arjun." she referred to her job as a Motel America maid.

After a few seconds of laying out some basic groundwork for the upcoming plan, the small group dispersed. Heading back into the diner with Mama-ji, Brina wasn't all that surprised to see the jinn, Salim, and Sweeney eating breakfast. Laura was there as well, but of course, she wasn't eating. "Ifrit, Grimnir needs you in Mitchell, at the Corn Palace; ask for Old Iktomi." Mama-ji explained to the jinn. 

"To what end?" he asked.

"Gungnir."

Laura, who had no idea what was going on, looked around for answers. "Gungnir?"

"His fucking spear." Sweeney wiped his mouth with a napkin before standing up and marching outside, Laura and Brina following behind. "You're getting Fire-eyes and the fairy to fetch your fuckin' spear for ya?" Sweeney snapped at Wednesday.

"What do you plan to do about Shadow?" Laura followed up. 

"He'll be fine. Great battles require great preparation." Wednesday placed his bucket hat onto his head, answering both questions pretty much at once before sliding into his car.

Nancy smirked. "And sacrifice to you."

Leaning in through the window, Laura scoffed. "You don't give a shit about him."

"Oh, I very much give a shit. Just have faith in your man. "

"My favourite Tammy Wynette song." Nancy walked around to the passenger's side of the vehicle. "Shotgun!"

Sweeney glared at the well-dressed gentleman. "Oh, now Spiderman's ridin' with ya? You keep givin' away my fuckin' seats."

"It's fun. Watch, I'll do it again." Wednesday looked to Brina and gestured to the back seat. "Hop in, kid. You did as I requested by following this fucking change-purse around, and for that I am grateful. As a reward, you get to ride with the big boys."

Brina chuckled at the dig toward the leprechaun. "Thanks for the offer, but I'll pass. The change-purse still needs babysitting."

"Suit yourself."

"I do not need babysittin'!" Sweeney snapped before pushing Laura out of the way and taking her spot at the window. "What happened to our arrangement?"

"Laura seems to feel Shadow needs saving, and as history proves, you three are somewhat of a crack-team. So go help save Shadow."

Sweeney's face soured. "I will not be dying in battle over Shadow fuckin' Moon."

Wednesday smirked as he started up the car. "A problem of your own making."

"You are the biggest, most unlucky leprechaun I have ever met!" Nancy shouted over the sound of the engine as he sat in the open window of the car, his feet resting on the passenger's seat and his arms folded on the roof. 

"Bugger off!" Sweeney snapped.

"Bugger yourself off, bitch!"

As the car disappeared around the bend in the road, Laura huffed. "What a cunt."

While the jinn - Ifrit - rode off on his motorcycle with Salim in the sidecar, their mission to retrieve Wednesday's spear, Laura marched off to find a car to steal. If this war could be won by grand theft auto and other various illegal stunts, rest assured, they would have already won. 

"Babysittin'?" Sweeney narrowed his eyes down at Brina. "Really?"

"Oh, don't kid yourself. You and I both know that without that coin in your possession you're walking a very thin line between life and death." Brina crossed her arms. "And dead wife doesn't like you nearly enough to save your life if it came down to it. Like it or not, you kinda need me if you wish to even taste the anticipation of war."

As the two walked over to the car that Laura had chosen, Sweeney grunted. "And what makes you so inclined to save my life, huh? I thought we were having a lover's quarrel after what I said back at Easter's place."

"Well, call it what you wish." Brina waited for Sweeney to break into the car and get it started. "But if all of this ends up being for none and all that's left for us in this word is to slowly fade away into the darkness, at least I will have gotten to do what I do best one last time; saving murder-happy idiots from death. It's purely for selfish reasons."

"Yeah, purely for selfish reasons," Sweeney repeated, clearly not believing a word of it. "Call it what you wish, but I knew sooner or later you'd come lookin' for a bit of leprechaun lovin'."

"Just steal the fucking car, change-purse." 

With Sweeney driving and Laura in the passenger's seat giving directions to where Shadow was — because apparently one of her weird dead powers was the ability to always know where her husband was —, Brina sat in the back seat, minding her own business as the two up front bickered some more, like always. Sweeney really did have a way of bringing out the worst in people. "You know, you could show a little gratitude every now and then." he told Laura, "Might improve your luck."

"I don't believe in luck," Laura replied, "I don't. I'm an atheist. God is a fairytale for grown-ups."

"Welcome to the fairytale." Brina snickered, "We hope you enjoy your stay!"

Swiveling her head, Laura sighed. "He is definitely moving. Turn here," she instructed before picking the conversation back up. "You things are not gods, by the way. You're made by people. People who need answers and they're too fucking lazy to look for them themselves. I mean, who the fuck ever needed a leprechaun? You take and you take and you take and what do you give back to people? Nothing. You are monsters under the bed, just fucking with human lives."

"Pot, kettle, black!" Sweeney sneered, "And God didn't fuck up your life; you did a great job of that all by yourself."

"Well, it was my life to fuck up!"

"Indeed it was, and you fucked the shit out of it, didn't ya? Fucked up your husband's life as well. Got him sent to prison. And then, when he was payin' his penance for you, ya sucked all over his best friend's knob."

"I don't know what kind of syphilitic time period spawned leprechauns, but in my world, infidelity does not warrant a death sentence."

"Where I'm from, it's the greatest sin. To betray your sworn true love is the crime of a coward-" 

"Cow!" Brina pointed to the single cow standing in the middle of the road that had thus far gone unnoticed by the fighting couple in the front seats. 

Slamming on the breaks, Sweeney swerved around the cow, just barely missing the ditch before steering the vehicle back onto the road. Just when it seemed like the trio had escaped another automotive catastrophe, the front wheel blew out and the car slowed to a stop. 

Leaning forward between the two, Brina smirked. "Now, does anyone have anything more they'd like to get off of their chest before we get out and repair this fucking car?" she waited a moment, but neither one of them said a thing. "Good."

While Laura used her strength to lift the front of the car off of the ground, Brina took off the damaged wheel and Sweeney retrieved the spare from the trunk. Damn were they lucky Laura decided to steal a car with a spare; the only bit of luck they had seen in a long while.

"Jesus, woman, are there any flies in the state of Wisconsin that aren't flocking to ya?" Sweeney commented on the swarm of flies buzzing around Laura. 

"Just change the fucking tire."

"And...that's my cue." Brina walked off, leaving the two to deal with the mess they had created. Walking over to the herd of cows that had gathered in the middle of the road, Brina tried to gently shoo them away in preparation for their eventual departure, should the dead wife and grouchy leprechaun ever manage to actually change the tire.

A few moments later, however, when Laura dropped the car onto Sweeney's foot and the two began shouting again, things weren't looking good. Finally though, after an extra five minutes due to the hostility, the car was as good as new — or, as good as it was when they had stolen it.

"Lovely job." Brina returned after herding the cows off of the road. "And you didn't kill each other in the process. There might be hope for the two of you yet."

Flashing a thumbs up, Laura nodded before bending over and wretching onto the gravel; more maggots. "Yeah, I don't need hope."

"No, you just need my fuckin' coin." Sweeney scoffed.

"Just relax, okay?" Laura said, "You'll get your fucking coin back. Either I fall apart and you take it from me, or I get my life back and I will gladly cram it down your throat."

Pushing the flat tire into the grassy ditch, Sweeney pulled a cloth out of his pocket and wiped his hands clean. "If you truly want your life back, I might have another option for ya. There's a devil in the French Quarter of New Orleans. Haven't seen him in a donkey's age."

"Yeah, there was also a woman in Kentucky." Laura mocked.

"None better with the spice of life than the old Baron."

"And that's a good thing for me?"

"Price'll be steep," Sweeney warned, "How badly you want it?"

Laura folded her arms over her chest. "I will literally do anything. After we get Shadow."

As Laura got back into the car, Brina pulled her sunglasses out and slid them onto her face. "New Orleans, huh? You and I both know that the price is more than steep, and no amount of gold will ever pay him off."

"We're runnin' out of options here." Sweeney justified, "If I take her, are you comin'?"

"Depends. You planning on needing a babysitter?"


	16. Follow the Ravens

"Can you speed it up? I can barely see him." Laura peered into the distance, her eyes narrowing as she did so. "What do you usually drive? Horse and buggy?"

Sitting back in his seat with one hand on the wheel, clearly relaxed and content with the speed he was currently doing, Sweeney made no effort to comply with Laura's request. "Says the corpse who flipped an ice cream truck." 

"Oh, my God." Laura slid to the edge of her seat and placed her foot on top of Sweeney's before pressing down hard on the gas. 

"Oh, yay. This'll be fun." 

Hearing the engine of the old car rev, Brina sat up slightly from her reclined position in the back seat and furrowed her brows at how quickly the scenery was passing by. "Um, what the fuck?" she gripped onto the seat in front of her and put her seatbelt on. "How have you, a woman who has been in two major car accidents in a span of about two weeks, not learned your lesson about road safety?!"

"He's going so fast," Laura muttered to herself, ignoring the protesting around her, "Way too fast to be in a car."

"We'll survive the turnover." Sweeney told Laura, "There'll be pieces of you all over the road."

As the car raced up and over an incline in the road, Laura suddenly screamed and pulled hard on the handbrake. With the wheels locking up, the car slid along the gravel road a few meters before coming to a jarring halt right where the road ended and a grassy field full of flowers began. 

"What the fuck?!" Laura got out of the vehicle and stared disbelievingly at the field. "How does a road just end?"

With defeat painted on her face, Laura waded into the knee-high grass and blue flowers before dropping onto her back and lying among the greenery. "I think I genuinely almost had a heart attack." Brina's hand clasped her chest. "I don't think Gods can have heart attacks, but I swear, if they could, I almost just had one."

Fishing his flask out of his breast pocket, Sweeney took a swig of the liquid before offering it to the woman beside him. "Yes, please." Brina took a sip before taking a deep breath. "A little alcohol, a nice walk to bring my heart rate back down to normal, and I should be golden." she started heading back up the road again, away from the field. "I'll be back in like ten minutes. Try to have a plan by then."

Taking a little bit to regain her composure after what was nearly yet another accident, Brina shuffled her feet along the gravel road and headed back the way they had just come from. In the absence of constant bickering, Brina enjoyed the serene silence of the country road and breathed in the scent of the fresh pines around her. 

As Brina took her final step and reached the peak of the small hill, her eyes settled on a black raven that was standing right in the middle of the road, its glassy black eyes staring back at her. "Oh, for fuck sake." Brina threw her arms up in annoyance. "You are like an overbearing parent."

Instead of cawing back, like Wednesday's ravens usually did, this one turned away and pecked at the ground a few times. "What, I'm getting the silent treatment from a bird now?" Brina took a step closer. "I haven't done anything wrong. Those two need a mediator even at the best of times. I'm just...keeping the peace."

Still nothing. Flapping its wings a few times, the bird hopped forward a bit before taking flight and disappearing into the trees. Thoroughly confused by the encounter, Brina turned on her heel and started back for Sweeney and Laura, hoping to brush the odd situation off. Maybe it had just been a normal bird after all, in which case, Brina was definitely starting to lose it. 

Once the car was back in sight, Brina searched around for either Laura or Sweeney, but she was unable to locate either of them. "Hello?" she called, "Guys, I'm back."

Stepping into the grass, Brina walked over to the spot where Laura had laid down earlier, but the only thing left was the imprint her body had made by crushing the flowers and grass; no actual body. Doing a full spin, Brina did one last final search, but when she couldn't spot Sweeney's tall frame or smell Laura's decaying flesh — even over the sweet scent of the flowers — she knew the two had left. 

"Jesus Christ." Brina marched back over to the car and got into the driver's seat, thankful that Sweeney had left the keys in the ignition. "I'll go with them." she mocked herself as she started the car back up again and made a sharp u-turn. "No thanks, Wednesday, I'd rather go with dumb and dumber. That seems like a better use of my time...what the fuck was I thinking?!"

Speeding back down the road, Brina kept her eyes peeled for the first turn off in an attempt to make her way around the field and link-up with a street that would take her in the direction that Laura had said Shadow was heading in. Even though Brina had no clue where the leprechaun and dead wife were, she knew that their destination was more than likely still the same. 

With dust clouding into the air around her spinning tires, Brina took a sharp right turn and drove until she came upon a side street with a single raven perched on the roadsign. Hedging her bets, the woman continued to follow the ravens, having no idea if she was following Wednesday's ravens or regular, everyday ravens. 

Rolling down the windows, Brina took the time alone to crank the music and actually enjoy what little time she had to herself on the open road. For a little while, she completely forgot about where she was going and why she was going there and instead just followed the winding path in front of her. 

With her hair blowing in the wind, Brina stepped on the gas, going nearly the same speed that Laura had gone but with none of the same fear. When you live an eternal life, it sure is important to take a moment every once in a while and enjoy the thrill of simply being alive.

The joy faded fast however when Brina steered the car around a bend and spotted a familiar man standing in the middle of the road — much like the raven had been before — with his arms outstretched. In an instant, the bright blue sky flooded with clouds and the wind began to pick up. 

Parking the car, Brina ran toward Wednesday as the railroad crossing rails began to lower and the red lights began to flash. "What the hell are you doing?" Brina yelled as she eyed up Wednesday's car, Betty, parked right on the train tracks. 

"Stopping the train," Wednesday said matter-of-factly before looking back at his car. "I'll see you in Valhalla." 

Lurching up into a sitting position, Nancy, who had been sleeping in the backseat of the car, scrambled out of the vehicle as soon as he took in the situation around himself and pieced together what was happening. "Nobody is going to fucking Valhalla." he stormed past Wednesday as the train sped toward them, getting closer and closer to the car. "I'll see you in Cairo."

Turning to Brina again, Wednesday smiled. "Glad my ravens found you."

"So those were some of your little spies." Brina folded her arms across her chest. "What was the point? The first bird didn't even say a word."

"The point was to make sure you weren't on that." Wednesday pointed at the train that was about to collide into Betty in about ten seconds. "Thought you earned that much. Now, hush and enjoy the show."

Keeping her distance, Brina watched in slight horror as the train barreled down the track, its horn blowing over and over again, loud and startlingly. With wide eyes and bated breath, her eyes never left the car as the train crashed into it hard, causing the train cars to pile up on top of one another before a huge explosion emitted. 

The blast knocked Brina off of her feet, and when she stood back up again, the smoke in the air making her cough, she rose to see Wednesday's car still intact — not a single scratch on it — while the train lay in a heap on the ground, flames and thick smoke spilling from it. 

In the aftermath of the wreck, the sky was dark with Wednesday's clouds and the smog, the only light coming from the flickering flames. Spotting movement among the mayhem, Brina moved closer to see Sweeney stepping over bits of the broken train; so that's where he and Laura had disappeared to. "Hey, Asshole!" she waved angrily, "Remember me? The person you abandoned in that fucking field!" 

"Oh, shit." Sweeney groaned when he spotted the angry woman. 

"Oh, shit is right!" Brina was about to tell Sweeney off some more but stopped in her tracks when she nearly stepped on a severed arm. Looking down and to the right, Brina came upon Laura and the three limbs that were scattered around her. 

"Ah, Mrs. Moon." Wednesday approached Laura and chuckled. "Did we sit on a wall? Did we have a great fall?"

Groaning, Laura used her one attached arm to gesture around at the wreckage. "Shadow's around here somewhere. We have to find him."

"Sweeney, Brina, pick up the arms and the talkie bits, would you?" Wednesday requested as he grabbed Laura's legs and stuffed them into the trunk of his car.

"Don't do this." Laura shook her head. "Don't help him."

"Pipe down," Sweeney grumbled as he hoisted Laura's torso into his arms. "Believe it or not, I'm helping you."

Picking up Laura's severed arm, Brina winced. "I would feel worse for you if you weren't already dead...and if you hadn't ditched me in that fucking field. Where in the hell did you guys even go?"

"Through the horde," Laura answered.

Brina looked up and Sweeney and scowled. "Of course you did."

"Come on!" Wednesday waved the others over. "Put her in the trunk."

"Motherfucker!" Laura tried to fight back, but with only one arm, even her super-strength wasn't doing her any favours. "I trusted you. Fucking vultures."

Once Laura and her parts were stored away safely in the trunk, Wednesday slammed the hatch down and gave it a few pats. "Welcome back, Betty." he motioned for Sweeney and Brina to get into the car with him, making it clear that they were not going to retrieve Shadow.

"You sure you want to leave the oaf?" Sweeney asked, the sound of Laura screaming from the trunk echoing in the background.

"Am I the only one that had faith in Shadow?" Wednesday questioned.

Brina shrugged. "I'll have faith once I see something worth having said faith."

"My faith is waning." Sweeney piped up.

"The quickest way for Shadow to get where he's going is sometimes the longest," Wednesday said before starting up the car and racing off down the road and away from the remains of the locomotive. 


End file.
